Improving the reliability and accuracy of population receptive field measures using a logarithmically warped stimulus

J Vis. 2025 Jan 2;25(1):5. doi: 10.1167/jov.25.1.5.

Abstract

The population receptive field (pRF) method, which measures the region in visual space that elicits a blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal in a voxel in retinotopic cortex, is a powerful tool for investigating the functional organization of human visual cortex with fMRI (Dumoulin & Wandell, 2008). However, recent work has shown that pRF estimates for early retinotopic visual areas can be biased and unreliable, especially for voxels representing the fovea. Here, we show that a log-bar stimulus that is logarithmically warped along the eccentricity dimension produces more reliable estimates of pRF size and location than the traditional moving bar stimulus. The log-bar stimulus was better able to identify pRFs near the foveal representation, and pRFs were smaller in size, consistent with simulation estimates of receptive field sizes in the fovea.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brain Mapping / methods
  • Female
  • Fovea Centralis / physiology
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging* / methods
  • Male
  • Photic Stimulation* / methods
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Visual Cortex* / physiology
  • Visual Fields* / physiology
  • Young Adult