Isolating the information in feedback connections in visual cortex

Visual areas are connected by recurrent connections: feedforward connections establish the tuning properties of cells, but the function of feedback connections remains poorly understood. Here I will discuss our recent studies isolating the information conveyed by feedback connections using occlusion paradigms in monkeys and mice. I will show how feedback serves multiple purposes, including figure-ground segregation, contextual processing and prediction, simultaneously. Our findings demonstrate how feedback enables the visual system to converge on an accurate model of the external world.