Neuronal responses to static texture patterns in area V1 of the alert macaque monkey

We recorded responses from neurons in area V1 of the alert macaque monkey to textured patterns modeled after stimuli used in psychophysical experiments of pop-out. Neuronal responses to a single oriented line segment placed within a cell's classical receptive field (CRF) were compared with responses in which the center element was surrounded by rings of elements placed entirely outside the CRF. The orientations of the surround elements either matched the center element, were orthogonal to it, or were random. The addition of the textured surround tended to suppress the response to the center element by an average of 34%. Overall, almost 80% of the 122 cells analyzed in detail were significantly suppressed by at least one of the texture surrounds. Cells tended to respond more strongly to a stimulus in which there was a contrast in orientation between the center and surround than to a stimulus lacking such contrast. The average difference was 9% of the response to the optimally oriented center element alone. For the 32% of the cells showing a statistically significant orientation contrast effect, the average difference was 28%. Both the general suppression and orientation contrast effects originated from surround regions at the ends of the center bar as well as regions along the sides of the center bar. The amount of suppression induced by the texture surround decreased as the density of the texture elements decreased. Both the general suppression and the orientation contrast effects appeared early in the population response to the stimuli. The general suppression effect took ~7 ms to develop, whereas the orientation contrast effect took 18-20 ms to develop. These results are consistent with a possible functional role of V1 cells in the mediation of perceptual pop-out and in the segregation of texture borders. Possible anatomic substrates of the effects are discussed.