Modular and Hierarchical Organization of Extrastriate Visual Cortex in the Macaque Monkey

Abstract

In the 1970s, a quiet revolution began in our understanding of how information processing occurs in regions beyond the primary visual cortex. Work from several laboratories indicated that there were more visual areas than just the three proposed by classic neuroanatomists. The number of extrastriate areas identified around that time was about a half dozen in various species (Zeki 1976; Allman 1977; Van Essen 1979; Tusa et al. 1981). It also became apparent during this period that the connectivity among visual areas was more complex than the simple serial processing sequence that many investigators expected to encounter.