Complex cell receptive fields: Evidence for a hierarchical mechanism

Abstract

Simple cells in the primary visual cortex have segregated ON and OFF subregions in their receptive fields, while complex cells have overlapping ON and OFF subregions. These two cell types form the extremes at each end of a continuum of receptive field types. Hubel and Wiesel in 1962 suggested a hierarchical scheme of processing whereby spatially offset simple cells drive complex cells. Simple and complex cells are often classified by their responses to moving sine wave gratings: simple cells have oscillatory responses while complex cells produce unmodulated responses. Here, using moving gratings as stimuli, we show that a significant number of cells that display low levels of response modula..