Spatial information processing by the human visual system

Ungerleider and Mishkin suggested the existence of two partly independent visual streams in mammalian visual system. According to their original account, a ventral stream originating from striate cortex and finally terminating in infer temporal region is responsible for identification of objects and, a dorsal stream also coming from striate cortex and projection to posterior parietal cortex plays an important role in localization of those same objects. “What versus Where” hypothesis has been center of investigators’ argument for years. In this review, considering extensive behavioral and neurophysiologic studies, some new ideas about processing of spatial information in mammalian visual system are briefly discussed.