Conclusions

1) As also described elsewhere at this meeting, receptive field structure is seen to correspond with response properties. These experiments demonstrate this correspondence through manipulations on single cells, rather than across populations.

2) Despite the intrinsically nonlinear nature of the specific timing aftereffect observed with drifting gratings, it appears in a simple summation of the responses to stationary stimuli.

3) Adapting the entire receptive field can induce specific aftereffects locally. Direction selectivity and spatial and temporal frequency tuning are thereby affected.

4) Adaptation aftereffects are seen in both strength and timing of the stationary responses, and these two aspects are independent of each other.

5) These results are consistent with the idea that simple cells are arranged in push-pull networks, with adaptation affecting the gain of the mutually inhibitory connections. This scheme explains not only the timing aftereffect from drifting gratings, but also the local timing aftereffects in the receptive field maps.

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