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 Concept Videos

Visual Agnosia01:12

Visual Agnosia

Visual agnosia is a condition characterized by the inability to recognize visually presented objects despite having normal vision. For instance, a person with visual agnosia can describe the shape and color of an object but cannot identify or name it. This impairment does not affect their visual field, acuity, color vision, brightness discrimination, language, or memory. An example of this condition in a social setting is someone at a dinner party asking for "that silver thing with a round end"...
Visual System01:26

Visual System

Light enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent, dome-shaped surface covering the surface of the eyeball that helps to direct and focus incoming light. This light is then channeled toward the pupil, an adjustable opening whose size is controlled by the iris. The iris, a pigmented muscle, regulates the amount of light entering the eye by contracting or dilating the pupil, thereby ensuring optimal light levels for clear vision.
Once through the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a...
Vision01:24

Vision

Vision is the result of light being detected and transduced into neural signals by the retina of the eye. This information is then further analyzed and interpreted by the brain. First, light enters the front of the eye and is focused by the cornea and lens onto the retina—a thin sheet of neural tissue lining the back of the eye. Because of refraction through the convex lens of the eye, images are projected onto the retina upside-down and reversed.
Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex01:14

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.
Neural Circuits01:25

Neural Circuits

Neural circuits and neuronal pools are two of the main structures found in the nervous system. Neural circuits are networks of neurons that work together to carry out a specific task or process. They consist of interconnected neurons and glial cells, which provide structural and metabolic support.
Neuronal pools are collections of nerve cells with similar functions and interact through chemical and electrical signals. These pools include both interneurons (the central neural circuit nodes that...
Parallel Processing01:20

Parallel Processing

The brain processes sensory information rapidly due to parallel processing, which involves sending data across multiple neural pathways at the same time. This method allows the brain to manage various sensory qualities, such as shapes, colors, movements, and locations, all concurrently. For instance, when observing a forest landscape, the brain simultaneously processes the movement of leaves, the shapes of trees, the depth between them, and the various shades of green. This enables a quick and...

You might also read

Related Articles

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

Sort by
Same author

Continuity fields enhance visual perception through positive serial dependence.

Nature reviews psychology·2026
Same author

Integration of affective cues in context-rich and dynamic scenes varies across individuals.

Nature communications·2025
Same author

Slow change blindness from serial dependence.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2025
Same author

Green One Health Cardiology: Integrating Nature and Sustainability Into Cardiovascular Prevention and Care.

JACC. Advances·2025
Same author

Predictors of childhood vaccination uptake and timeliness: a cross-sectional study in a diverse urban UK population.

The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners·2025
Same author

Continuous affect tracking reveals that overestimation during the recollection of affect is idiosyncratic and stable.

Journal of vision·2025
Same journal

Demonstration of a quantum C-NOT gate in a time-multiplexed fully reconfigurable photonic processor.

Nature communications·2026
Same journal

Nonlinear quantum light source with van der Waals ferroelectric NbOX<sub>2</sub> (X = Br, I).

Nature communications·2026
Same journal

Antagonistic histone H2A variants and autonomous heterochromatin formation shape epigenomic patterns in Arabidopsis.

Nature communications·2026
Same journal

The long tail of nitrate pollution in groundwater challenges governance of global water quality.

Nature communications·2026
Same journal

Select microbial metabolites promote tau aggregation in a murine tauopathy model.

Nature communications·2026
Same journal

Warming climate has lengthened global intense tropical cyclone seasons.

Nature communications·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 18, 2026

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings
07:08

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings

Published on: August 1, 2018

Attention gates visual coding in the human pulvinar.

Jason Fischer1, David Whitney

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. jtf@berkeley.edu

Nature Communications
|September 13, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The pulvinar nucleus precisely encodes attended visual objects, while ignoring irrelevant stimuli. This finding supports its role in filtering distractors for effective visual attention.

More Related Videos

P50 Sensory Gating in Infants
12:55

P50 Sensory Gating in Infants

Published on: December 26, 2013

A Gaze-Contingent Display Framework for Perceptual Learning Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
07:12

A Gaze-Contingent Display Framework for Perceptual Learning Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss

Published on: April 11, 2025

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 18, 2026

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings
07:08

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings

Published on: August 1, 2018

P50 Sensory Gating in Infants
12:55

P50 Sensory Gating in Infants

Published on: December 26, 2013

A Gaze-Contingent Display Framework for Perceptual Learning Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
07:12

A Gaze-Contingent Display Framework for Perceptual Learning Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss

Published on: April 11, 2025

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Visual Attention Research

Background:

  • The pulvinar nucleus, part of the thalamus, is hypothesized to play a key role in visual attention due to its extensive connections with visual and attentional brain networks.
  • Existing evidence regarding the pulvinar's specific function in attention is limited and often contradictory, necessitating further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how the human pulvinar nucleus encodes attended and ignored visual objects during simultaneous presentation and competition for attentional resources.
  • To clarify the pulvinar's precise function within the neural circuitry of visual attention.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from two distinct experiments.
  • Analyzed neural patterns in the pulvinar to determine the encoding of object features (position, orientation) under different attentional conditions.

Main Results:

  • Demonstrated that attention modulates information processing within the pulvinar.
  • Found high-precision encoding of attended object information (position and orientation).
  • Observed no measurable encoding of ignored object information, indicating suppression of unattended stimuli.

Conclusions:

  • The pulvinar nucleus acts as a critical component in attentional filtering, actively suppressing information from competing, ignored stimuli.
  • These findings support a role for the pulvinar in isolating behaviorally relevant objects by filtering out distractors, thereby enhancing visual attention.