Fig 7. Effect of short-term plasticity on distractor inputs.

A While a bump (“Bump”) is centered at an initial angle φ₀ (chosen to be 0), additional external input causes neurons centered around the position φ_D to fire at elevated rates (“Distractor”). The theory predicts the shape and magnitude of the induced drift field (“Field”) and the mean bump center φ₁ after 250ms of distractor input. Gray trajectories are example simulations of bump centers of the corresponding Langevin equation Eq (4). B Mean final positions φ₁ of bump centers (1000 repetitions, shaded areas show 1 standard deviation) as a function of the distractor input location φ_D. Increased short-term facilitation (blue: strong facilitation, U = 0.1; orange: intermediate facilitation, U = 0.4; green: no facilitation U = 1) leads to less displacement due to the distractor input. Other STP parameters were kept constant at τ_u = 650ms, τ_x = 150ms. C Same as panel B, for three different depression time constants τ_x, while keeping U = 0.8, τ_u = 650ms fixed. D Same as panel B, with a broader bump half-width (σ_g = 0.8rad ≈ 45.8 deg). All other panels use the same bump half-width as in the rest of the study (σ_g = 0.5rad ≈ 28.7 deg) (see S1 Fig).