COMPUTATIONAL NEUROIMAGING OF HUMAN VISUAL CORTEX

Functional magnetic resonance imaging is a new neuroimaging method for probing the intact, alert, human brain. With this tool, brain activity that has been hidden can now be measured. Recent advances in measuring and understanding human neural responses underlying motion, color, and pattern perception are reviewed. In individual human brains, we can now identify the positions of several retinotopically organized visual areas; measure retinotopic organization within these areas; identify the location of a motion-sensitive region in individual brains; measure responses associated with contrast, color, and motion; and measure effects of attentional modulation on visually evoked responses. By framing experiments and analyses as questions about visual computation, these neuroimaging measurements can be coupled closely with those from other basic vision-science methods.