Receptive field characteristics that allow parietal lobe neurons to encode spatial properties of visual input: A computational analysis

Randall C. O'Reilly, Stephen M. Kosslyn, Chad J. Marsolek, and Christopher F. Chabris

Investigated the hypothesis that a crucial difference between the inferior temporal (IT) lobe and parietal neurons is the spatial distribution of their response profiles. In particular, IT neurons typically respond maximally when stimuli are presented at the fovea, whereas parietal neurons do not. A parallel-distributed-processing network was able to map a point in an array to a coordinate representation more easily when a greater proportion of its input units had response peaks off the center of the input array. This result did not depend on potentially implausible assumptions about the regularity of the overlap in receptive fields or the homogeneity of the response profiles of different units. The internal representations formed within the network had receptive fields resembling those found in area 7a of the parietal lobe.

O'Reilly, R. C., Kosslyn, S. M., Marsolek, C. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1990). Receptive field characteristics that allow parietal lobe neurons to encode spatial properties of visual input: A computational analysis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2 , 141-155.