Topic: population-level encoding

Neuronal activity in the primate superior colliculus (SC) is modulated by physical salience, reward value, and attention, but how these signals are integrated remains unknown. One hypothesis is that SC activity reflects a unified “priority map” of the visual field. However, it is unclear how a unified priority map might support distinct roles for SC activity in different contexts: If the same SC neurons are activated by saccade cues and attention cues, how can SC activity evoke a saccade in one context but covert orienting of attention in another context? We hypothesized that distinct sources