Hue tuning curves in V4 change with visual context

Neurons are often probed by presenting a set of stimuli that vary along one dimension (e.g. color) and quantifying how this stimulus property affect neural activity. An open question, in particular where higher-level areas are involved, is how much tuning measured with one stimulus set reveals about tuning to a new set. Here we ask this question by estimating tuning to hue in macaque V4 from a set of natural scenes and a set of simple color stimuli. We found that hue tuning was strong in each dataset but was not correlated across the datasets, a finding expected if neurons have strong mixed selectivity. We also show how such mixed selectivity may be useful for transmitting information about multiple dimensions of the world. Our finding suggest that tuning in higher visual areas measured with simple stimuli may thus not generalize to naturalistic stimuli. New & Noteworthy Visual cortex is often investigated by mapping neural tuning to variables selected by the researcher such as color. How much does this approach tell us a neuron’s general ‘role’ in vision? Here we show that for strongly hue-tuned neurons in V4, estimating hue tuning from artificial stimuli does not reveal the hue tuning in the context of natural scenes. We show how models of optimal information processing suggest that such mixed selectivity maximizes information transmission. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.