Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Orientation-selective adaptation to illusory contours in human visual cortex.

Leila Montaser-Kouhsari1, Michael S Landy, David J Heeger

  • 1Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA. lmk306@nyu.edu

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|March 3, 2007
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Dissociating the behavioral and computational features of implicit motor learning and explicit perturbation detection.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Normalization accounts for temporal dynamics in human somatosensory cortex.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Visual confidence accurately tracks increasing internal noise with eccentricity in peripheral vision.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Voice and Speech in Atypical Parkinsonian Disorders.

Movement disorders clinical practice·2026
Same author

Implicit adaptation's effect on sensorimotor and motor confidence.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2025
Same author

Sensorimotor confidence during explicit motor adaptation.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2025
Same journal

Does stimulus preceding negativity reflect predictions in a somatosensory roving paradigm?

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Temporal Dynamics of EEG Reflect Continuous Error Correction During Force Control.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Frontoparietal Hub Connectivity Integrates Information from Multiple Sources.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Mapping the Heart-Brain Continuum beyond Heart Failure: Why Neurology Matters.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Emergence of behavioral tinnitus in gerbils is associated with reduced spontaneous rates in single auditory nerve fibers.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Decoding the neural stages from action and object recognition to mentalizing.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
See all related articles

Humans can detect illusory contours, which are subjective boundaries. This study found orientation-selective neural responses to these contours in both early and higher visual areas of the brain.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception
  • Computational Neuroscience

Background:

  • Humans perceive subjective contours without physical edges.
  • Illusory contours are crucial for object recognition and scene understanding.
  • Neural mechanisms underlying illusory contour processing are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate orientation-selective neural responses to illusory contours.
  • To determine the role of early and higher visual areas in processing illusory contours.
  • To examine how adaptation affects neural responses to illusory contours.

Main Methods:

  • Used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans.
  • Employed an adaptation protocol with phase-shifted abutting line gratings to create illusory contours.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Measured fMRI responses to illusory contour stimuli after adaptation to parallel or orthogonal orientations.

    • Main Results:

    • Found orientation-selective adaptation to illusory contours in early visual areas (V1, V2) and higher visual areas (V3, hV4, VO1, V3A/B, V7, LO1, LO2).
    • Adaptation effects were specific to illusory contour orientation, not spectral power differences.
    • Orientation selectivity for illusory contours increased from early to higher visual areas.

    Conclusions:

    • Both early and higher-tier visual areas contain neurons selective for illusory contour orientation.
    • The visual system processes illusory contours in a hierarchical manner.
    • These findings advance our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying subjective contour perception.