Texture segregation is processed by primary visual cortex in man and monkey. Evidence from VEP experiments

We investigated whether the process of texture segregation can be allocated to a specific visual cortical area. We designed a stimulus to reveal the presence of a mechanism, which is specifically sensitive to a checkerboard, that is solely defined by textures segregating due to orientation differences of the constituting line segments. We recorded evoked potentials to this stimulus in man and awake monkey. A difference component, signalling texture segregation sensitivity, could be recorded from both types of subjects. Its presence depended on the spatial extent of the textures, in a manner correlating with the perceptibility of the checkerboard. This difference response could be localized in primary visual cortex by means of equivalent dipole estimations.