Stereopsis and the random element in the organization of the striate cortex

Abstract

Receptive field position and orientation disparities are both properties of binocularly discharged striate neurons. Receptive field position disparities have been used as a key element in the neural theory for binocular depth discrimination. Since most striate cells in the cat are binocular, these position disparities require that cells immediately adjacent to one another in the cortex should show a random scatter in their monocular receptive field positions. Superimposed on the progressive topographical representation of the visual field on the striate cortex there is experimental evidence for a localized monocular receptive field position scatter. The suggestion is examined that the binocular position disparities are built up out of the two monocular position scatters. An examination of receptive field orientation disparities and their relation to the random variation in the monocular preferred orientations of immediately adjacent striate neurons also leads to the conclusion that binocular orientation disparities are a consequence of the two monocular scatters. As for receptive field position, the local scatter in preferred orientation is superimposed on a progressive representation of orientation over larger areas of the cortex. The representation in the striate cortex of visual field position and of stimulus orientation is examined in relation to the correlation between the disparities in receptive field position and preferred orientation. The role of orientation disparities in binocular vision is reviewed.