Interaction effects of visual contours on the discharge frequency of simple striate neurones

1. The discharge frequency of simple neurones in the cat striate cortex responding to the two edges of a slit of light moving over their receptive fields was studied as a function of slit width. While one edge of the slit was discharging the cell, the other edge had a modifying influence on that discharge either by way of facilitation or of inhibition.2. The most common form of the curve relating discharge frequency and slit width had a maximal discharge at narrow slit widths (< 0.5 degrees ) and relative inhibition at medium widths (between 0.5 degrees and 2 degrees ). At greater slit widths there was usually a region of facilitation before the effects of the two edges became independent of one another. Three other response patterns to slits of different width are described.3. The curve relating slit width and response amplitude for a particular cell provides an important clue to the various activity profiles for that cell. An activity profile plots the excitability of a cell along a line through the receptive field in the direction of stimulus movement. Each type of edge, light and dark, has its own set of activity profiles which differ depending upon stimulus parameters such as the direction of the movement of the edge.4. Two other methods were used to provide further data concerning the activity profiles and as a check on the evidence provided by the responses to slits of different width. One of these two methods used the test stimulus against the background of an artificially produced maintained discharge and the other involved the interaction of the two receptive fields of binocularly activated cells.5. A model is put forward to explain the receptive field organization of simple striate neurones which takes into account not only the main features of what is known concerning the synaptology of the visual cortex but also the new data provided by the present paper and the one which precedes it.