The Mazer lab studies the role of extrastriate visual cortex in natural, visually guide behavior. We are interested in how cortical microcircuits support complex behavior. Current work in the lab focuses on three issues: (1) Characterizing neuronal responses to spectrally complex natural scene stimuli. This work uses modern linear and non-linear system identification methods to estimate the receptive field properties of visual neurons based on neuronal responses to natural visual stimuli. (2) Identifying the sources and circuits underlying top-down modulation of visual selectivity using neurophysiological methods. We use visual search tasks in conjunction with single neuron recordings to investigate how attention and memory interact with visual processing during complex behavior to facilitate target detection. (3) Exploring interactions between visual processing and oculomotor behavior. These studies seek to clarify the relationship between spatial attention and the oculomotor planning processes by studying how saccadic eye movements affect the locus of spatial attention.