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Related Concept Videos

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.
Auditory Pathway01:15

Auditory Pathway

Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking the...
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...
Depth Perception and Spatial Vision01:15

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth perception is the ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally. It relies on two types of cues: binocular and monocular. Binocular cues depend on the combination of images from both eyes and how the eyes work together. Since the eyes are in slightly different positions, each eye captures a slightly different image. This disparity between images, known as binocular disparity, helps the brain interpret depth. When the brain compares these images, it determines the distance to an object.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 10, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
06:07

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Deciding where to look based on visual, auditory, and semantic information.

Kyeong-Jin Tark1, Clayton E Curtis

  • 1Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA. kjtark@nyu.edu

Brain Research
|June 18, 2013
PubMed
Summary

This study shows the posterior parietal cortex transforms visual, auditory, and semantic cues into spatial goals for eye movements (saccades). This brain region creates general spatial representations for guiding behavior.

Keywords:
AuditorySaccadeSemanticSpatial cognitionfMRI

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Systems Neuroscience

Background:

  • The dorsal frontal and parietal cortex are implicated in visual target selection for saccades.
  • Understanding how target selection generalizes across different sensory modalities is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if target selection mechanisms in the frontal and parietal cortex are specific to visual information.
  • To examine the role of these regions in transforming auditory and semantic information into spatial saccade goals.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
  • Subjects performed visually, aurally, and semantically guided saccades.
  • Machine learning decoders were trained on fMRI data patterns.

Main Results:

  • Neural responses in the frontal and parietal cortex were robust but not specific to the cue type.
  • Decoders could classify cue type and saccade direction based on activity in the intraparietal sulcus.
  • This suggests a modality-general role for the posterior parietal cortex.

Conclusions:

  • The posterior parietal cortex plays a key role in transforming multimodal sensory inputs into general spatial representations.
  • These representations are utilized for guiding saccadic eye movements, irrespective of the initial cue modality.