Seeing the world in a grain of sand: Fine global and local representations in foveal and parafoveal vision

Foveal vision enables primates to perceive small objects with remarkable precision by resolving both global form and fine local detail. Here, we challenge current frameworks of coarse-to-fine spatial analysis and local-to-global feature integration, which posit that V1 encodes fine local detail, whereas IT represents global. We found that fine-global structure and fine-local detail are jointly encoded neuronally as early as V1 and preserved across V2, V4 and IT across both foveal (1{degrees}-2{degrees}) and parafoveal (2{degrees}-6{degrees}) retinal eccentricities. By contrast, coarse-global features dominated parafoveal vision and higher cortical areas. Response latencies revealed a rapid processing sequence, with 2-6 ms separating coarse-global, fine-local, and fine-global processing within parafoveal V1, V2 and V4. These findings establish a neuronal framework supporting fine-scale visual perception and behavior.