Choice-related Activity in the Anterior Intraparietal Area during 3-D Structure Categorization

The anterior intraparietal area (AIP) of macaques contains neurons that signal the depth structure of disparity-defined 3-D shapes. Previous studies have suggested that AIP's depth information is used for sensorimotor transformations related to the efficient grasping of 3-D objects. We trained monkeys to categorize disparity-defined 3-D shapes and examined whether neuronal activity in AIP may also underlie pure perceptual categorization behavior. We first show that neurons with a similar 3-D shape preference cluster in AIP. We then demonstrate that the monkeys' 3-D shape discrimination performance depends on the position in depth of the stimulus and that this performance difference is reflected in the activity of AIP neurons. We further reveal correlations between the neuronal activity in AIP and the subject's subsequent choices and RTs during 3-D shape categorization. Our findings propose AIP as an important processing stage for 3-D shape perception.