Work

Neural mechanisms of saccade target selection: gated accumulator model of the visual–motor cascade

Year: 2011

Type: review

Abstract: We review a new computational model developed to understand how evidence about stimulus salience in visual search is translated into a saccade command. The model uses the activity of visually responsive neurons in the frontal eye field as evidence for stimulus salience that is accumulated in a network of stochastic accumulators to produce accurate and timely saccades. We discovered that only when the input to the accumulation process was gated could the model account for the variability in search performance and predict the dynamics of movement neuron discharge rates. This union of cognitive modeling and neurophysiology indicates how the visual-motor transformation can occur, and provides a concrete mapping between neuron function and specific cognitive processes.

Source: European Journal of Neuroscience

DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07715.x

Authors: Jeffrey D. Schall, Braden A. Purcell, Richard P. Heitz, Gordon D. Logan, Thomas J. Palmeri

Institution: Vanderbilt University

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Eye Institute, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center, Neurophysiological Correlates of Decision Formation, Saccade Target Selection Frontal Cortex, Core Grant in Vision Research