Selectivity of the parietal visual neurones in 3D orientation of surface of stereoscopic stimuli

We identified a group of neurones in the posterior parietal cortex of the monkey that responded preferentially to a flat stimulus in a particular orientation on a 3D computer graphics display. We designated these neurones surface-orientation selective (SOS) neurones since they showed tuning to the 3D orientation of the surface. Almost all of the SOS neurones were sensitive to binocular disparity and their responses increased with the width or length of the stimulus, but the responses of only some of them decreased with increasing thickness of the stimulus. These results suggest that SOS neurones extract surface orientation signals from the binocular disparity signals and play an important role in the perception of 3D shape and the visual guidance of hand movement.