Fig. 5: Encoding of visual saliency depends on the preference across different visual features.

a Response amplitude as a function of saliency strength for ideal saliency-encoding neurons, independent of the preference for specific visual features. Green dots indicate response amplitude to SFGs with different orientation contrasts. The blue triangle indicates the response amplitude to SMG, which may be more or less salient than the SFG. b Response amplitude difference between two salient stimuli as a function of neurons' preferences for specific orientations, directions, and features. c Difference in response amplitude between SFG and SMG (SMG-SFG) versus FSI; r is Pearson’s correlation coefficient: p < 0.001 for both excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Exc: N = 968; Inh: N = 1688. Cyan lines represent linear fits. d Violin plots for the difference in response amplitudes evoked by SFGs and SMGs for saliency-encoding neurons across different levels of feature selectivity. Low: FSI < 0.25; Medium: 0.25 ≤ FSI < 0.5; FSI ≥ 0.5. One-way ANOVA, p < 0.001 for both excitatory and inhibitory neurons; p < 0.001 for all pairwise comparisons using Tukey’s range test. Exc: N = 270, 484, 248; Inh: N = 651, 1272, 713. e SI_SMG is positively correlated with SI_SFG: r is Pearson’s correlation coefficient, p < 0.001 for both excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Exc: N = 2056, Inh: N = 3344.