Department of Ophthalmology and Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642 and , 1 Laboratory of Neuropsychology, NIMH, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
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Abstract |
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Introduction |
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Shape discrimination is the visual ability most commonly associated with the IT cortex (Gross, 1973a,b
; Dean, 1974
). This identification is derived mostly from the numerous studies that have found several-fold increases of errors during relearning of a variety of object shape discriminations following IT lesions (Iwai and Mishkin, 1969
; Cowey and Gross, 1970
). As was pointed out by Dean, the design of these studies often made it difficult to discriminate deficits in shape recognition from other visual or performance deficits (Dean, 1976
). Recently, thresholds have been used to better characterize deficits caused by IT lesions and efforts have been made to eliminate cues which might assist the monkeys in performing the tasks [for examples of both techniques see (Cowey et al., 1998
)]. In the present study, we measured shape distortion thresholds to determine whether subtle shape discrimination is specifically and permanently disrupted by IT lesions.
The association of the IT cortex with perceptual invariances for color, size and contrast polarity has been suggested by the finding that IT cortex neurons show invariances for color, size and polarity in their physiological responses (Ito et al., 1994, 1995
; Vogels and Orban, 1996
). In this study, we determined the effect of altering such irrelevant stimulus dimensions on shape distortion thresholds.
Possible effects of IT lesions on perceptual grouping or the visibility of illusory contours were suggested by a recent study (Merigan, 1996) in which lesions of cortical area V4, which provides a major part of the input to areas TEO (Kuypers et al., 1965
; Weller and Kaas, 1985
; Distler et al., 1993
; Felleman et al., 1997
) and TE (Desimone et al., 1980
; Spiegler and Mishkin, 1981
), permanently disrupted both discriminations.
Lesions of the IT cortex would also be expected to cause difficulty with oddity discriminations for two reasons. IT lesions often result in perseveration (Iversen, 1970; Dean, 1974
), which should impair discriminations in which correct and incorrect stimuli switch frequently, as they do in true oddity discriminations. Indeed, successive reversal learning is impaired after IT lesions (Manning, 1972
). Secondly, the large receptive fields of IT neurons might be needed for the comparison of multiple stimuli over a large part of the visual field. Such comparison may be necessary to identify and locate the odd stimulus.
Lastly, unlike the mild and transitory effects of IT lesions on color discriminations described in many studies (Gross et al., 1971; Dean, 1979
), Heywood and co-workers (Heywood et al., 1995
) reported that large IT lesions in monkeys caused a complete loss of color vision. This led the authors to conclude that IT lesions may represent a non-human primate model of human cerebral achromatopsia. Subsequently, Buckley and colleagues (Buckley et al., 1997
) reported devastating losses of color vision in macaques with smaller IT lesions. However, failure to establish reliable color thresholds after IT lesions could represent a loss of color sensitivity, a general disruption of visual discriminations after IT lesions, or a combination of these two effects. Therefore, we examined color vision after large lesions to the IT cortex, and used intensive post-operative retraining on easy color discriminations to (i) re-establish performance on the color discriminations task and (ii) measure stable post-operative hue discrimination thresholds. Our results show that IT lesions cause a permanent increase in hue discrimination thresholds and therefore only a partial, rather than a complete, loss of color vision.
In summary, our goal in this study was to characterize the role of the IT cortex in the above visual capabilities by comparing pre- and post-operative threshold performance and by using stimuli in which dimensions other than the one being tested were minimized or made irrelevant. Lesions were made bilaterally, encompassing either area TEO alone or the entire IT cortex, and the monkeys were tested psychophysically using a four-alternative forced-choice procedure. Intensive postoperative retraining on each task and prolonged behavioral testing made it possible to examine the permanence of lesion effects.
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Materials and Methods |
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Subjects were four adult, female monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) weighing ~5 kg. Brain lesions were made using standard sterile neurosurgical procedures. Through a craniotomy, the dura was opened and the desired tissue removed by suction with a 20-gauge stainless steel tube. Experiments were carried out in accordance with the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (1987).
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Behavioral Testing Apparatus and Procedures
Monkeys had free access to monkey chow, supplemented regularly with fresh fruit, but they had limited access to fluids which served as rewards for correct responses during behavioral testing. The animals were tested for 200250 trials/day, five days per week, over a period of 56 years. This prolonged period of testing was necessitated by our interest in the permanent effects of temporal cortex lesions. All testing was done binocularly without controlled fixation, and none of the monkeys had >0.5 D of refractive error in either eye. The monkeys were seated, facing a high resolution (1152 x 870) 17 Nanao video display at a distance of 114 cm. A four-alternative forced-choice procedure was used, with a four-panel stimulus display that included three distracters and one target panel (Fig. 1). Each panel was presented in one of the 4 x 4 quadrants on the display, which were separated by a 1° wide gray strip.
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All monkeys were trained on shape distortion and hue discrimination tasks before placement of lesions. Initially, they learned a simple chromatic discrimination task using strong luminance differences between the target and distracters until performance was >90% correct during a single session of 250 trials. The luminance differences were then decreased and finally randomized, thus rendering them ineffective as cues. Monkeys were then taught to discriminate a distorted geometric shape from three undistorted ones, initially using a single shape per quadrant, then proceeding to four shapes per quadrant. Monkeys A (TEO lesions) and B (IT lesions) were tested on variants of the shape distortion task only after the lesion. Monkey C (IT lesions) was tested on all variants of the tasks before and after the lesion. Monkey D (control) was also tested on all variants of the tasks. Testing continued on each task until performance stabilized, i.e. threshold variations were less than a factor of two, over at least three consecutive sessions of 200250 trials each. Trials to criterion were measured as the number of trials to reach this point. The data presented in the figures are the average thresholds obtained on at least 3 consecutive days after performance stabilized on each task, both before and after the lesions. The two-tailed Student's t-test was used to establish statistical significance between control and post-lesion performance. P values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant and P values > 0.05 were not.
Shape and Color Discriminations
Shape Distortion.
Each stimulus consisted of four panels, and each panel contained four geometric shapes outlined in black on a white background (a circle, a square, a square with rounded corners and an equilateral triangle BAS in Fig. 2). The position and orientation of each shape varied between panels and from trial to trial. On each trial one of the four shapes (chosen randomly) in one of the panels (also chosen randomly) was distorted (Fig. 1A
), and the monkeys were trained to choose the panel on which the distorted shape appeared, regardless of whether the distorted shape was a circle, square, square with rounded corners or triangle. Distorted shapes were created by placing each shape in a square window and distorting the window by elongating one of its sides by 590%. From trial to trial, the degree of shape distortion of the chosen shape was varied from 90 to 5% according to a staircase procedure (steps were 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 90%) which increased distortion by one step after each error and decreased it with probability 0.33 after each correct choice. This ensured that a shape distortion threshold, corresponding to 62.5% correct performance, was determined in each session.
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Red and green: the color of the three identical panels was a greenishyellow reference hue, produced by driving the red and green guns of the display to 85% maximum (Fig. 3). Separate thresholds (defined as 62.5% correct, the value halfway between chance and perfect performance) were measured for detecting isoluminant greenish (towards the green gun) and reddish (towards the red gun) deviations from this color. In this and the following experiment, only deviations toward a single color (i.e. red, green, blue or yellow) were tested in each session.
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Shape Invariances: Color, Size and Contrast Polarity
Contrast Polarity Reversal.
The task was identical to that described above for shape distortion detection except that the shapes were outlined in white on a black background, rather than black on white (Fig. 2, POL).
Color Variation.
The black outlines in the original task were replaced with a red, blue, yellow and green outline on each panel, but the color was irrelevant to performance of the task (Fig. 2, COL).
Size Variation.
Black outlined shapes were randomly made up to 40% larger or smaller than in the original task (Fig. 2, SIZ).
Mixture. Each of the four panels was made up with one of the formats described above or one additional format (shapes of solid color on a white background). The task remained to detect the panel containing a distorted shape.
Perceptual Grouping: Detection of Vertical or Horizontal Pop-outs
Four panels were presented to the monkey on the monitor, each containing a 9 x 9 array of short oblique lines (Fig. 4). Background lines in each panel were of either right or left oblique orientation, and five consecutive lines in one column or row were oriented orthogonal to the background lines.
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Oddity Discrimination
Color versus Gray. As in hue discrimination above, the stimulus consisted of four panels, each containing a 3° circle. Three panels were identical (either a single color or gray) and the fourth was gray if the three were colored and colored if the three were gray. The monkey chose the panel containing the odd stimulus. The brightness of each of the four stimuli was varied irregularly so that it could not be used as a cue to solve the discrimination. The target stimulus could appear in any of the four panels with equal probability.
Choose Color Non-oddity Control. In this test a single colored circle (blue, green or red) was presented together with three gray circles, and the monkeywas required to choose the colored circle.
Choose Gray Non-oddity Control. A single gray circle was presented together with three identical circles of either blue, green or red, and the monkey was required to choose the gray circle.
Horizontal versus Vertical Grouping.
The stimuli were as described above for the perceptual grouping task (Fig. 4), which served as a non-oddity control for this experiment. In this experiment, the monkeys' task was to pick the odd panel, i.e. the one containing vertically aligned pop-out lines if the other three had horizontally aligned pop-outs and vice versa. The target stimulus could appear in any of the four panels with equal probability.
Illusory Contours
Illusory Contour Shapes.
The background of each panel contained either right or left oblique lines, while the shapes were filled with lines orthogonal to the background. Line thickness and spacing was identical within the shapes and in the background (Fig. 5, ILLUS). This stimulus lacked luminance contrast, as did the control stimulus described below as isoluminant color.
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Illusory Contour Shapes with Added Outline Cue.
Shapes were made as in ILLUS except that each shape was outlined with a thin black line (Fig. 5, OUT).
Isoluminant Color Shapes.
Shapes were solid red on a green background or solid green on a red background. Three conditions were tested: (i) the red and green were photometrically isoluminant (measured with an HP 1750 photometer); (ii) the red was 5% brighter than the green; (iii) the red was 5% dimmer than the green (Fig. 5, R-G).
Histology
At the conclusion of testing, the three operated monkeys were overdosed with Pentobarbital and perfused through the heart with saline followed by fixative (3% paraformaldehyde + 0.1% glutaraldehyde in 0.1 M phosphate buffer, pH 7.4). Their brains were removed and 50-µm-thick frozen coronal sections were obtained. Alternate sections were stained with cresyl violet for Nissl substance and reacted to demonstrate cytochrome oxidase activity which helped confirm the extent of the lesions. The stained coronal sections were matched with those from a standard normal brain at 1 mm levels throughout the antero-posterior and medio-lateral extent of the lesions. The lesions were then mapped onto these standardized sections and surface views were reconstructed. The dorsal lateral geniculate (LGN) and medial pulvinar nuclei were also examined for cell loss and degeneration patterns. The location of degeneration in the LGN was charted and compared with the visual field maps of Malpeli and Baker (Malpeli and Baker, 1975).
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Results |
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The ablations were largely as intended. Coronal, lateral and ventral surface reconstructions for each animal are shown in Figure 6. The TEO lesions in monkey A extended from the IOS to just anterior to the posterior middle temporal sulcus (PMTS). Medially, they were limited by the OTS. Dorsally, the ventral bank of the STS was also removed. The IT lesions in monkeys B and C were limited for the most part to the IT cortex lateral to the OTS, extending laterally and dorsally to include both banks of the STS.
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In monkey B (IT lesions), there was bilateral cell loss in ~20% of both LGNs. The degeneration was found in regions corresponding to the upper visual hemifield and did not appear to include the foveal representation (Malpeli and Baker, 1975). This degeneration pattern is not uncommon in monkeys with lesions of IT (Britten et al., 1992
). There were no visible signs of cell loss or degeneration in the LGN of monkeys A (TEO lesions) and C (IT lesions).
The pulvinar nuclei were also examined for degeneration in each brain, and in monkeys B and C (IT lesions) there was bilateral degeneration in the ventro-lateral portions. This pattern of degeneration is expected after IT lesions (Bnften et al., 1992).
Post-operative Behavior
Other than the fact that its behavior was less aggressive after lesions of area TEO, monkey A displayed no behavioral abnormalities. However, following lesions of the IT cortex, monkeys B and C developed a noticeable apathy towards other monkeys (lack of reaction to their behavior), and they began touching, smelling and mouthing all items presented to them whether edible or not. These behaviors resembled the KlüverBucy syndrome described by Mishkin and co-workers (Mishkin, 1954; Mishkin and Pribam, 1954
) after similar lesions.
Initial Disruption of Visual Performance
Monkey A (TEO lesions) resumed testing 6 days after surgery and its performance on all tasks was unaffected. Following their IT lesions, monkeys B and C became unable to perform the basic hue and shape distortion discriminations they had been trained on, and had to relearn these tasks. Monkey B was retrained on simple color discriminations containing a luminance cue in the target stimulus. Within 7 days, this monkey had relearned the hue discrimination task and its thresholds began to decrease. After reaching criterion on the hue discrimination task, it was retrained on the shape distortion task, first using single shapes and then the four-shapes paradigm. The post-operative disruption was more severe in monkey C (IT lesions), who initially lost the ability to perform all four-alternative forced-choice tasks and had to be retrained to push buttons for a juice reward. After 9 days of training on the hue discrimination task, initially using a luminance cue in the target stimulus which was then made irrelevant, thresholds began to be collected. After reaching criterion, monkey C was switched to the shape discrimination task using single shape stimuli and, finally, the four-shape distortion paradigm. Once retrained, both monkeys B and C were able to perform the hue discrimination and shape distortion detection tasks, but they required hundreds to thousands more trials (200250 trials per session) than pre-operatively in order to reach stable thresholds.
Detecting Shape Distortions
When mean percent correct performance (averaged across the final days of stable threshold testing) was plotted as a function of the degree of shape distortion (Fig. 7) for the basic shape distortion task (bas), no significant change in performance was observed as a result of IT lesions.
The left portion of Figure 8A (bas) shows distortion thresholds derived from the daily psychometric functions whose means are shown in Figure 7
. Control thresholds (including one control monkey and the pre-lesion thresholds of the three operated monkeys) averaged 22 ± 6% distortion (left column of Fig. 8
). Shape distortion thresholds were not significantly increased by either TEO lesions or complete IT lesions (Student's t-test, P = 0.48 for monkey A, P = 0.17 for monkey B and P = 0.07 for monkey C), although monkey C (IT lesions) showed a large increase in trials to criterion for reaching stable thresholds (Fig. 8B
).
Hue Discrimination
Pre-lesion thresholds for the three monkeys (Figs 9 and 10) differed by less than a factor of two. The TEO lesions caused no significant change in thresholds for yellow, blue, red or green. On the other hand, the complete IT lesions caused a 3-fold elevation in yellow and green thresholds for monkey B and an even greater increase (6- and 22-fold for yellow and green respectively) for monkey C. Elevations of blue and red thresholds were ~3- and 1.2-fold respectively for monkey B (IT lesions), and 16- and 6-fold for monkey C (IT lesions). Figure 9A
shows pre- and post-lesion hue difference thresholds for deviations from the reference color(s) towards yellow and green.
The number of trials required by monkey A (TEO lesions) to reach stable hue thresholds was similar before and after its lesions (illustrated in Fig. 7B for deviations towards green and yellow). However, monkeys B and C had to relearn the hue discrimination task after their IT lesion. They required >1000 trials each just to be able to perform this task at its easiest level, and additional trials to reach stable thresholds. Monkey B needed an additional ~1500 trials to reach criterion. Monkey C required an additional 20006000 trials (i.e. 1025 testing sessions, depending on the hue) to reach stability post-lesion, compared with 500600 trials (i.e. 23 sessions) pre-lesion.
Despite their elevated hue difference thresholds, both IT- lesioned monkeys retained considerable chromatic discrimination ability. Color thresholds for the two IT lesioned monkeys are illustrated on the CIE color space in Figure 10. This figure shows that, although post-lesion thresholds were elevated substantially compared with pre-lesion thresholds (1.2- to 22-fold), both monkeys retained considerable color vision. Indeed, in a subsequent experiment (color versus gray non-oddity discrimination; see Fig. 11B
), both monkeys were able to choose colored stimuli from among gray distracters, or gray stimuli from among colored distracters, even though luminance was scrambled to eliminate it as a possible cue.
Shape Invariances
The remainder of Figure 8 shows that there was no statistically significant disruption of shape distortion thresholds, either pre- or post-lesion, when irrelevant stimulus features were added (Student's t-test, P > 0.05 for all tasks and all monkeys; stimuli in Fig. 2
). The ability to ignore irrelevant color, size and contrast polarity cues was retained in spite of bilateral lesions of area TEO and the IT cortex.
Grouping
The ability to group misoriented line segments and discriminate the orientation of this group in a 9 x 9 array was intact after bilateral lesions of area TEO in monkey A (not shown). Similarly, the two monkeys (B and C) with complete IT lesions were able to discriminate the horizontal from the vertical pop-outs (see the left portion of Fig. 11A Choose horizontal and Choose vertical).
The percent correct performance on these discriminations was ~75%, well above the threshold defined at 62.5% correct, the midpoint between chance and perfect performance.
Oddity Discrimination
The right portion of Figure 11A shows performance of the monkeys with complete IT lesions on the oddity version of the grouping task. The hatched bar shows that monkey B could perform this discrimination at ~80% correct before the IT lesion, whereas after the lesion neither monkey could perform the task much above 40% correct. As poor as this performance was, it appeared substantially better than the chance performance of 25% expected for a four-alternative forced-choice procedure. However, since these discriminations involved choices between two stimulus types, chance performance could be 50% correct if there was a strong bias towards one stimulus type, rather than 25% correct for random choices or a position bias. This probably accounts for the finding that the performance of the monkeys was typically above 25%.
Figure 11B shows the ability of the two monkeys with IT lesions to choose a colored stimulus from three gray stimuli (Choose color) or a gray stimulus from three colored stimuli (Choose gray). Both monkeys could perform this discrimination well above chance post-operatively. It was noted that both monkeys showed better performance on the choose color than on the choose gray discrimination, reflecting a bias towards choosing a colored rather than a gray stimulus. However, since we did not measure this discrimination before the IT lesion, we cannot determine if this bias is in part a result of the lesion or a training artifact. In contrast, when the monkeys were required to perform an oddity discrimination that combined the two tasks (i.e. choose the odd stimulus, whether colored or gray), both monkeys were severely impaired.
Illusory Contour Discrimination
Following complete IT lesions, the distortion thresholds for the illusory contour shapes of monkeys B and C were significantly (Student's t-test, P < 0.0001 for both monkeys) and permanently elevated (60% distortion), whereas those of monkey A (TEO lesions) were not affected (Figs 12 and 13
). Figure 12
shows the mean percent correct performance over the period when stable thresholds were collected and illustrates that IT lesions substantially decreased the percent correct for all tested values below 90% distortion. When first presented with the illusory contour version of the shape distortion task after IT lesions, monkeys B and C were unable to detect the presence of even 90% distortion.
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Discussion |
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Shape Distortion Thresholds Were not Permanently Disrupted by IT Lesions
As in previous studies (Yaginuma et al., 1982; Holmes and Gross, 1984
), bilateral, complete lesions of the IT cortex in monkeys B and C caused a severe initial disruption of shape discrimination. However, this initial and temporary disruption was not specific to shape discrimination, but affected hue and brightness discriminations as well. The fact that both monkeys had to relearn the basics of the test procedure suggests the possibility of a cognitive or motivational basis for these immediate postoperative deficits. After retraining on the basic discrimination task, shape distortion thresholds were eventually re-measured in all monkeys and were found to be normal. Given this result, it would be hard to argue that an intact IT cortex is crucial to shape discrimination for those stimuli in which shape is conveyed by luminance contrasts. Previous studies of IT lesions also have not convincingly demonstrated a critical role for the IT cortex in shape discriminations. Most studies [e.g. (Iwai and Mishkin, 1969
; Weiskrantz and Saunders, 1984
)] showed a transitory disruption of previously learned discriminations, or an increased number of trials to reach criterion when learning new discriminations (Yaginuma et al., 1982
; Holmes and Gross, 1984
; Britten et al., 1992
). Permanent perceptual deficits have typically not been demonstrated, except in those cases in which no discriminations could be made after the lesions (Soper et al., 1975
). We conclude that, except for shapes defined by illusory contours (discussed below), IT lesions only transiently disrupt shape discriminations, and the disruption is no greater than that for other visual discriminations.
Color Thresholds were Elevated, but Color Vision was not Eliminated, by Lesions of TEO + TE
While disruptions of color vision after IT lesions in macaques have typically been described as moderate and/or transitory (Gross et al., 1971; Wilson et al., 1972
; Dean, 1979
; Heywood et al., 1988
; Aggleton and Mishkin, 1990
; Cowey, 1994
), there is a suggestion from the results of Dean that the severity of color vision effects might be increased if the IT lesion were extended to the anterior tip of the inferior temporal gyrus (Dean, 1979
). However, such an extension of the IT lesion in the study by Heywood and colleagues (Heywood et al., 1995
) led to complete color blindness, an unexpectedly severe outcome. This effect cannot be explained by the extension of the lesion across the occipito-temporal border of IT in all three color blind monkeys of the AT group, since monkey RH-1, whose lesion did not extent across the occipito-temporal sulcus, was also found to be color blind. Even smaller lesions of IT cortex in the study of Buckley and colleagues caused a post-lesion failure to relearn a color discrimination task (Buckley et al., 1997
). Do these results suggest that the IT cortex is critical to simple color discriminations?
The IT lesions in the present study extended (as in the Heywood monkeys AT-1, AT-2, AT-3 and RH-1) to the anterior tip of the inferior temporal gyrus, as well as the lower and upper banks of the STS, which Aggleton and Mishkin had suggested might exacerbate color vision effects (Aggleton and Mishkin, 1990). However, while our IT lesions did not extend medially beyond the occipito-temporal sulcus, they extended further posteriorly than lesions in Heywood monkeys AT-1, AT-2, AT-3 and RH-1, including area TEO right up to the inferior occipital sulcus. Like Heywood and colleagues (Heywood et al., 1995
), we found an immediate loss of hue discrimination ability (although the loss was not confined to hue discriminations see above), but given retraining, initially with discriminations much easier than those used before the lesion, both monkeys with IT lesions were able to relearn the task and recovered a large part of their pre-lesion color sensitivity. Scrambling the brightness of color patches ensured that the majority (7 out of 8) of post-lesion color thresholds could not have been based on brightness cues. Furthermore, we do not expect that luminance cues should be introduced by spectral sensitivity changes following IT lesions since Mollon et al. showed rather normal spectral sensitivity of a human subject with severe achromatopsia (Mollon et al., 1980
). Therefore, although we found that lesions of the IT cortex caused a permanent elevation of hue thresholds, Figures 9 and 10
show that this represents a partial rather than a complete deficit. The partial deficit obtained in the present study may reflect our efforts to modify testing procedures until reliable discrimination performance was obtained post-operatively and color difference thresholds could again be measured. Under these conditions, it is clear that considerable color sensitivity survives even large IT lesions.
Future studies should better characterize hue discrimination changes observed after IT lesions and determine what aspect of color vision is affected. It will be particularly informative to compare changes in hue thresholds with those in chromatic contrast sensitivity, as well as to determine if color vision loss, independent of achromatic losses, is found in local regions of the visual field (Kolmel, 1988; Plant, 1991
).
Failure to Demonstrate that Perceptual Invariances are Mediated by the IT Cortex
We attempted to determine if the stimulus invariances evident in the physiological responses of IT neurons [size, polarity, location, color (Ito et al., 1994, 1995
; Vogels and Orban, 1996
)] indicate a role for these neurons in making perceptual recognition of shape invariant to changes in stimulus appearance. Previously, Gross and co-workers found that monkeys with lesions of the anterior IT cortex were unable to ignore irrelevant cues in tests which measured learning and retention of object and color discriminations (Gross et al., 1971
). However, we found no hint in this study that the discrimination of shape distortion was in any way impaired, even transiently, by the addition of irrelevant variations in stimulus color, size, polarity or location. All monkeys, even those with complete IT lesions, were able to switch from the basic shape distortion paradigm to the discrimination of stimuli with irrelevant cues added and they performed the easiest steps of the task, and sometimes even reached normal distortion thresholds immediately. These findings make it unlikely that the physiological invariances for IT neurons play a central role in mediating perceptual invariances. Conversely, these findings suggest that stimulus invariances of this type should be found in other cortical areas, and that damage to some of these areas may present as behavioral confusion caused by irrelevant stimulus cues.
Perceptual Grouping was Unaffected by IT Lesions
We have shown previously (Merigan et al., 1993; Merigan, 1996
; Merigan and Pham, 1996
) that both V2 and V4 lesions cause a complete and permanent disruption of perceptual grouping of line segment pop-outs. However, TEO lesions did not eliminate performance on a similar visual task in this study. This is of particular interest because V4 provides the major excitatory input to TEO (Kuypers et al., 1965
; Weller and Kaas, 1985
; Distler et al., 1993
; Felleman et al., 1997
). Furthermore, Figure 11A
shows that the ability to distinguish vertical from horizontal pop-outs also survived complete IT lesions (although oddity performance on this task was disrupted). Thus, to the extent that the pop-out orientation discrimination in previous V2 and V4 lesion studies and that in the present study measured the same capacity, this ability appears to depend on intact areas V2 and V4, but not TEO or TE. One implication of this analysis is that there must be ascending projections from V2 and/or V4 that are not interrupted by IT lesions. Several possible routes (e.g. V4 to MT) can be inferred from cortical connection maps (Felleman and Van Essen, 1991
).
Disruption of some Oddity Discriminations
While all of the discriminations tested in this study involved choice of one stimulus out of four, most were not true oddity tasks, in that the correct stimulus type remained constant for an entire session. Therefore, although the monkeys probably needed to examine all four stimuli to locate the correct choice, they did not have to examine them simply to identify which stimulus type was correct on each trial. For example, when we measured green color thresholds, the green color was correct on all trials of a session, but the monkey had to examine all four panels to locate the green stimulus and thus establish which of the four buttons to press for its answer. Before the IT lesion, oddity discriminations did not seem particularly difficult for the monkeys. Monkey C (IT lesion) learned the line segment pop-out oddity task (Fig. 4), scoring >75% within the first session of 200 trials. However, after the lesion, both monkeys with IT lesions performed at chance on this task, despite weeks of training. It is worth recalling that while gray-level oddity discriminations survived IT lesions in the study by Heywood and colleagues (Heywood et al., 1995
), color-based oddity discriminations were eliminated in some animals. This disruption may reflect either the nature of the oddity tasks or a greater difficulty of true oddity tasks compared with the two component discriminations (e.g. choose vertical and choose horizontal) that make it up. Further, it is known that IT lesions produce some tendency for monkeys to perseverate, that is, to favor choices that have been rewarded in the recent past (Cowey and Gross, 1970
; Iversen and Humphrey, 1971
; Dean, 1974
). Indeed, based on their correct performance, both monkeys B and C (IT lesions) appeared to have biases for selecting one of the stimulus types. Another possible explanation for the difficulties experienced by monkeys with IT lesions when presented with color or grouping-based oddity tasks is that post-lesion loss of the large receptive fields of the IT cortex (Desimone et al., 1984
) may have made it difficult to perform the simultaneous comparison of multiple stimuli that is needed to solve oddity discriminations.
However, the excellent post-lesion performance of gray-level oddity discriminations reported by Heywood et al. (Heywood et al., 1995) suggest either that following IT lesions, perseveration-type biases are more pronounced for color or grouping functions, or that luminance-based oddity discriminations, in addition to the luminance-based shape discriminations we reported above, are specifically spared.
Disrupted Perception of Illusory Contour Shapes
The only long-term effect of the complete IT lesions on the detection of shape distortion occurred when the shapes were represented by illusory contours between orthogonal sets of oblique lines. Because the monkeys were able to perform the task at the easiest stimulus level (90%), this seemed to represent a visual perceptual, rather than a cognitive deficit. Furthermore, the deficit appeared to have been due to the illusory contour, rather than the shape discrimination aspects of the task, since distortion of exactly the same shapes could be discriminated post-operatively when the shapes were defined by luminance or chromatic cues. Previous work has shown that lesions of areas V2 and V4 (Merigan et al., 1993; Merigan and Pham, 1996
) also permanently impair performance on another discrimination that involves illusory contours. If such deficits in the perception of illusory contour discrimination (albeit for somewhat different visual stimuli) involve a common mechanism, perhaps the IT cortex is the area critical to such discriminations. Lesions of areas V2 and V4 could produce their effects by depriving the IT cortex of its major inputs.
Lack of Effect of TEO Lesions on any Tested Discrimination
Present and previous results agree in showing no permanent visual deficits following TEO lesions, a conclusion that is surprising, given that area TEO provides a substantial part of the neural input to area TE (Desimone et al., 1980; Webster et al., 1991
; Distler et al., 1993
). One might expect that damaging area TE or removing a significant part of its input would have similar effects. That it does not may be due to the existence of feedforward projections in the visual pathways which skip cortical areas; for example, there are projections from V2 and V3 directly to area TEO (Distler et al., 1993
), and from V4 directly to area TE (Kuypers et al., 1965
; Desimone et al., 1980
) [for review see (Felleman and Van Essen, 1991
)]. Whatever the normal role of the V4 to TE projections, they may help to minimize the effects of TEO lesions.
Implications of the Present Results for the Role of the IT Cortex
As with any single method, lesion studies must be interpreted with caution when estimating the role of a lesioned structure. For example, the finding in the present case that shape distortion thresholds were not affected by IT lesions could still be consistent with an important role of the IT cortex in shape perception if, following the lesion, there had been a rapid assumption of this function by other cortical areas. This seems unlikely, since we found a non-specific, transitory disruption of all visual discriminations, but not even a temporary elevation of shape distortion thresholds. Our conclusion that the IT cortex is not necessary for shape perception appears consistent with the results, if not the conclusions, of previous lesion studies, to the extent that most have found only a transitory disruption of shape discrimination, but included no observations to show whether this was specific to shape perception. Our results also suggested that when post-lesion testing is adapted to re-establish color discriminations, IT lesions caused color sensitivity loss, but not color blindness. Although we did not address the prevailing view that the IT cortex is critical to many memory functions, our results suggest vastly different perceptual roles for the IT cortex than those with which it is traditionally associated. By concentrating on measurements of perceptual thresholds rather than just percent correct performance, saving scores or trials to criterion, we arrived at the conclusion that the IT cortex is not critical to shape perception, grouping or shape invariances; it is essential for the perception of illusory contours and the performance of oddity discriminations, and it plays some role in hue discriminations.
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Address correspondence to Krystel Huxlin, Department of Ophthalmology, Box 314, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA. Email: huxlin{at}cvs.rochester.edu.
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References |
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