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Journal of Vision Dec 2011This is a survey of psychophysical studies of motion perception carried out mainly in the last 10 years. It covers a wide range of topics, including the detection and... (Review)
Review
This is a survey of psychophysical studies of motion perception carried out mainly in the last 10 years. It covers a wide range of topics, including the detection and interactions of local motion signals, motion integration across various dimensions for vector computation and global motion perception, second-order motion and feature tracking, motion aftereffects, motion-induced mislocalizations, timing of motion processing, cross-attribute interactions for object motion, motion-induced blindness, and biological motion. While traditional motion research has benefited from the notion of the independent "motion processing module," recent research efforts have been also directed to aspects of motion processing in which interactions with other visual attributes play critical roles. This review tries to highlight the richness and diversity of this large research field and to clarify what has been done and what questions have been left unanswered.
Topics: Humans; Motion Perception; Photic Stimulation; Psychophysics
PubMed: 22144564
DOI: 10.1167/11.5.11 -
Current Biology : CB Dec 2022Eye movements cause rapid motion of the retinal image, potentially confusable with external motion. A recent study shows that neurons in mouse primary visual cortex...
Eye movements cause rapid motion of the retinal image, potentially confusable with external motion. A recent study shows that neurons in mouse primary visual cortex distinguish self-generated from external motion by combining sensory input with saccade-related signals from the thalamic pulvinar nucleus.
Topics: Animals; Mice; Eye Movements; Saccades; Neurons; Perception; Motion Perception; Photic Stimulation; Visual Perception
PubMed: 36538882
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.11.003 -
Experimental Brain Research Aug 2016When in darkness, humans can perceive the direction and magnitude of rotations and of linear translations in the horizontal plane. The current paper addresses the...
When in darkness, humans can perceive the direction and magnitude of rotations and of linear translations in the horizontal plane. The current paper addresses the integrated perception of combined translational and rotational motion, as it occurs when moving along a curved trajectory. We questioned whether the perceived motion through the environment follows the predictions of a self-motion perception model (e.g., Merfeld et al. in J Vestib Res 3:141-161, 1993; Newman in A multisensory observer model for human spatial orientation perception, 2009), which assume linear addition of rotational and translational components. For curved motion in darkness, such models predict a non-veridical motion percept, consisting of an underestimation of the perceived rotation, a distortion of the perceived travelled path, and a bias in the perceived heading (i.e., the perceived instantaneous direction of motion with respect to the body). These model predictions were evaluated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, seven participants were moved along a circular trajectory in darkness while facing the motion direction. They indicated perceived yaw rotation using an online tracking task, and perceived travelled path by drawings. In Experiment 2, the heading was systematically varied, and six participants indicated, in a 2-alternative forced-choice task, whether they perceived facing inward or outward of the circular path. Overall, we found no evidence for the heading bias predicted by the model. This suggests that the sum of the perceived rotational and translational components alone cannot adequately explain the overall perceived motion through the environment. Possibly, knowledge about motion dynamics and familiar stimuli combinations may play an important additional role in shaping the percept.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Motion Perception; Proprioception; Space Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 27056085
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-016-4638-0 -
ENeuro 2022Navigating through an environment requires knowledge about one's direction of self-motion (heading) and traveled distance. Behavioral studies showed that human...
Navigating through an environment requires knowledge about one's direction of self-motion (heading) and traveled distance. Behavioral studies showed that human participants can actively reproduce a previously observed travel distance purely based on visual information. Here, we employed electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the underlying neural processes. We measured, in human observers, event-related potentials (ERPs) during visually simulated straight-forward self-motion across a ground plane. The participants' task was to reproduce (active condition) double the distance of a previously seen self-displacement (passive condition) using a gamepad. We recorded the trajectories of self-motion during the active condition and played it back to the participants in a third set of trials (replay condition). We analyzed EEG activity separately for four electrode clusters: frontal (F), central (C), parietal (P), and occipital (O). When aligned to self-motion onset or offset, response modulation of the ERPs was stronger, and several ERP components had different latencies in the passive as compared with the active condition. This result is in line with the concept of predictive coding, which implies modified neural activation for self-induced versus externally induced sensory stimulation. We aligned our data also to the times when subjects passed the (objective) single distance d_obj and the (subjective) single distance d_sub. Remarkably, wavelet-based temporal-frequency analyses revealed enhanced theta-band activation for F, P, and O-clusters shortly before passing d_sub. This enhanced activation could be indicative of a navigation related representation of subjective distance. More generally, our study design allows to investigate subjective perception without interfering neural activation because of the required response action.
Topics: Humans; Motion Perception; Motion; Evoked Potentials; Electroencephalography
PubMed: 36635239
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0137-21.2022 -
Vision Research Feb 1997I investigated the discrimination of rigid from nonrigid structure and the perception of affine stretches along the line of sight [Norman & Todd (1993). Perception and...
I investigated the discrimination of rigid from nonrigid structure and the perception of affine stretches along the line of sight [Norman & Todd (1993). Perception and Psychophysics, 53, pp. 279-291]. Investigations of performance at discriminating rigid from nonrigid structure showed that performance improved when number of views and amount of simulated three-dimensional nonrigidity increased. Investigations of rotations about the vertical which include affine stretches along the line of sight compared Euclidean interpretations of affine-stretching stimuli to human perception. These Euclidean interpretations were obtained from a simple algorithm which recovered structure and motion from this limited class of stimuli under the assumption that distances to the axis of rotation did not change. The algorithm predicted that stretches along the line of sight would be perceived as nearly rigid and have variable angular velocity. These predictions were supported by subjects' reports of occurrences of nonrigidity and minima of angular velocity. The Euclidean algorithm also provided measures of nonrigidity and motion coherence, and experimental results were consistent with a prediction of when perception of nonrigidity would be independent of perception of coherence. The results are discussed relative to the advantages and shortcomings of both the affine and Euclidean approaches to structure-from-motion.
Topics: Algorithms; Form Perception; Humans; Models, Biological; Motion Perception; Space Perception
PubMed: 9156176
DOI: 10.1016/s0042-6989(96)00188-5 -
Scientific Reports Aug 2017Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder pathologically characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. In...
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder pathologically characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. In previous studies, greater attention was paid to impairments in motor disturbances in contrast to impairments of cognitive function in PD that was often ignored. In present study, a duration discrimination paradigm was used to assess global and local biological motion (BM) perception in healthy controls(HCs) and PD patients with and without dopamine substitution treatment (DST). Biological motion sequences and inanimate motion sequences (inverted BM sequences) were sequentially presented on a screen. Observers were required to verbally make a 2-alternative forced-choice to indicate whether the first or second interval appeared longer. The stimuli involved global and local BM sequences. Statistical analyses were conducted on points of subjective equality (PSE). We found significant differences between untreated PD patients and HCs as well as differences between global and local BM conditions. PD patients have a deficit in both global and local BM perception. Nevertheless, these two BM conditions can be improved under DST. Our data indicates that BM perception may be damaged in PD patients and dopaminergic medication is conducive to maintain the BM perception in PD patients.
Topics: Aged; Case-Control Studies; Dopamine Agents; Dopaminergic Neurons; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Motion Perception; Neuropsychological Tests; Parkinson Disease
PubMed: 28860519
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-10463-2 -
Journal of Vision Apr 2018How do we judge the direction of self-motion (i.e., heading) in the presence of independent object motion? Previous studies that examined this question confounded the...
How do we judge the direction of self-motion (i.e., heading) in the presence of independent object motion? Previous studies that examined this question confounded the effects of a moving object's speed and its position on heading judgments, and did not examine whether the visual system uses salient nonmotion visual cues (such as color contrast and binocular disparity) to segment a moving object from global optic flow prior to heading estimation. The current study addressed these issues with both behavioral testing and computational modeling. Our results show that the visual system does not treat independent object motion separately for the perception of heading during self-motion. This is surprising because we all can segment a moving object from global optic flow and perceive its scene-relative motion independent of self-motion. Our findings support the claim that the perception of self-motion with independent object motion and the perception of object motion during self-motion are performed by different neural mechanisms.
Topics: Adult; Computer Simulation; Cues; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Motion Perception; Optic Flow; Young Adult
PubMed: 29710309
DOI: 10.1167/18.4.19 -
Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research Apr 1998This paper examines the perception of first- and second-order motion in human vision. In an extension of previous work by Boulton and Baker [J.B. Boulton, C.L. Baker,... (Clinical Trial)
Clinical Trial
This paper examines the perception of first- and second-order motion in human vision. In an extension of previous work by Boulton and Baker [J.B. Boulton, C.L. Baker, Motion detection is dependent on spatial frequency not size, Vision Res., 31 (1991) 77-87; J.B. Boulton, C.L. Baker, Different parameters control motion perception above and below a critical density, Vision Res., 33 (1993) 1803-1811], the direction of two-frame apparent motion is measured for stimuli composed of Gabor or Gaussian micropatterns. Three conditions are investigated. Condition 1 is that used by Boulton and Baker, in which motion is defined by the displacement of Gabor micropatterns. In condition 2, motion is defined by the displacement of Gaussian micropatterns. In condition 3, the envelopes of Gabor micropatterns are displaced while their carriers remain static. Using sparsely distributed micropatterns, direction judgements in all three conditions are determined by the spacing of the micropatterns. With a dense stimulus, direction judgements vary as a function of displacement in qualitatively different ways for the three conditions. The psychophysical results are predicted by a two-channel computational model. In one channel, motion is calculated directly from stimulus luminance, while in the other it is preceded by a texture-grabbing operation. The relative activities of the two channels dictates which governs direction judgements for any given stimulus.
Topics: Computer Simulation; Discrimination Learning; Humans; Motion Perception; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Photic Stimulation; Psychophysics
PubMed: 9593930
DOI: 10.1016/s0926-6410(97)00037-2 -
Journal of Vision Feb 2013Perceiving three-dimensional object motion while moving through the world is hard: not only must optic flow be segmented and parallax resolved into shape and motion, but... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
Perceiving three-dimensional object motion while moving through the world is hard: not only must optic flow be segmented and parallax resolved into shape and motion, but also observer motion needs to be taken into account in order to perceive absolute, rather than observer-relative motion. In order to simplify the last step, it has recently been suggested that if the visual background is stationary, then foreground object motion, computed relative to the background, directly yields absolute motion. A series of studies with immobile observers and optic flow simulating observer movement have provided evidence that observers actually utilize this so-called "flow parsing" strategy (Rushton & Warren, 2005). We test this hypothesis by using mobile observers (as well as immobile ones) who judge the motion in depth of a foreground object in the presence of a stationary or moving background. We find that background movement does influence motion perception but not as much as predicted by the flow-parsing hypothesis. Thus, we find evidence that, in order to perceive absolute motion, observers partly use flow-parsing but also compensate egocentric motion by a global self-motion estimate.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Motion; Motion Perception; Movement; Optic Flow; Photic Stimulation
PubMed: 23397040
DOI: 10.1167/13.2.15 -
Journal of Vision 2016Mesopic and scotopic vision extend over an illuminance range of 106. The goal of the present study was to determine the effect of decreasing light level on the...
Mesopic and scotopic vision extend over an illuminance range of 106. The goal of the present study was to determine the effect of decreasing light level on the underlying motion mechanism that integrates spatiotemporally separated motion signals. To accomplish this, we took advantage of the phenomenon of visual motion priming, in which the perceived direction of a directionally ambiguous test stimulus is influenced by the directional movement of a preceding priming stimulus. After terminating a drifting priming stimulus, a 180° phase-shifted grating was presented as a test stimulus. The priming and test stimuli were separately presented to the central and peripheral retinas, respectively. The participants judged the perceived direction of this test stimulus at various light levels from photopic to scotopic levels. We found that the effects of motion priming disappeared over 1 log unit of mesopic light levels. When the test stimulus was presented before the offset of the priming stimulus to compensate for the temporal delay in the rod pathway or when both stimuli were presented at the same location in the periphery, a motion-priming effect appeared at mesopic light levels. These results suggest that different temporal characteristics between the cone pathway and rod pathway disturb the function of the putative motion mechanism responsible for the spatiotemporal integration of motion signals, which leads to specific modulation of motion perception over a wide range of mesopic vision.
Topics: Dark Adaptation; Humans; Light; Mesopic Vision; Motion Perception
PubMed: 26818969
DOI: 10.1167/16.1.16