Dimensional selectivity of neurons in the dorsolateral visual area of the owl monkey

The discovery of a large number ofextrastriate cortical visual areas has led to the hypothesis that each area performs its own set of functions in visual perception or visuomotor coordination. Owl monkey visual cortex contains at least 9 topographic representations of the visual field. We have found in one of these areas, the dorsolateral crescent (DL), that more than two-thirds of the neurons are selective for the spatial dimensions of visual stimuli within excitatory receptive fields much larger than the preferred stimulus dimensions. In preliminary results from other extrastriate areas, such neurons are much less common.