Motion perception

Johansson, G. 1976. Spatio-temporal differentiation and integration in visual motion perception. Psychol. Res., 38, 379-393. 

Motion and color are processed by different cortical areas. A difference in the luminance of a moving stimulus is required for coherent motion perception (Ramachandran and Gregory 1978). Cells found in V3 respond to lines of different orientation and also to motion (Tovee 1996). They do not respond to color. V3 is believed to process dynamic form. Some cells of V3 are able to discount the movement of the eye. They only respond to a stimulus that moves relative to the eye. These cells also receive information about the eye position (Zeki 1999). Cells in V3 are connected to layer 4B of VI. V3 is also connected to the thick stripes of V2. 

Ramachandran VS and Gregory RL 1978 Does colour provide an input to human motion perception Nature 275, 55-56. 

Neural Mechanisms for Self-Motion Perception in Area MST... 

Chen Y, Palafox GP, Nakayama K, Levy DL, Matthysse S, et al. 1999. Motion perception in schizophrenia. Arch Gen Psychiatry 56 149-154. 

Keri S, Must A, Kelemen O, Benedek G, Janka Z. 2006. Development of visual motion perception in children of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder A follow-up study. Schizophr Res 82(1) 9—14. 

Slaghuis WL, Holthouse T, Hawkes A, Bruno R. 2007. Eye movement and visual motion perception in schizophrenia II Global coherent motion as a function of target velocity and stimulus density. Exp Brain Res 182 415-426. 

Stuve TA, Friedman L, Jesberger JA, Gilmore GC, Strauss ME, et al. 1997. The relationship between smooth pursuit performance, motion perception and sustained visual attention in patients with schizophrenia and normal controls. Psychol Med 27 143-152. 

The perception of motion has been the subject of much research. The mystery lies in how perceived movement cannot be accounted for by the movement of an object s image across the retina. If that were so, movement of the observer, or eye movement would lead to perceived object movement. For example, when riding a bike the rest of the world would be perceived as moving. Another phenomenon of motion perception that cannot be fully explained by sensory processes involves saccades, which are rapid directed eye movements. Because the eye sees... 

In addition to contextual environmental factors, specific visual receptor cells that detect different types of movement such as up and down have been discovered. Despite this knowledge, many questions about the exact mechanisms of motion perception remain unanswered. 

Raghuram, A. and V. Lakshminarayanan (2006). Motion perception tasks as potential... 

Besides spatial selectivity tuned neurons, there are also temporal selective cells which are sensitive to movement of edges in specific directions. Their neuronal activity is highest if an object is moved in the preferred direction. They do not respond if the edge is moved in the opposite or other directions [2, p. 199, 17]. A more detailed review of motion perception is given in Sect. 4. 

Motion perception relies on luminance contrast decomposition of the visual pathway as well. Specifically tuned neurons in the visual cortex are sensitive to edges moving in a defined direction. Experimental findings indicate that this process does not necessarily require apparent motion [17]. This emerges the question if these neuronal structures can be stimulated by still images. 

The following section evaluates the impact of motion blur on human motion perception. The assessment of movement in the HVS can be separated into the physiological limitations resulting in motion blur and the neuronal processing of this artifact. 

Motion-defined pattern perception is realized, when we watch an area composed of coherently moving dots surrounded by sand storm region of incoherently moving dots. According to psychophysical experiments, this type of pattern perception includes two processes perception of motion itself and that of shape or contour [1]. The activated brain area for detecting motion itself has been established to be in the middle temporal area (MT/V5) or area V3A [2]. In contrast, the area for motion-defined pattern perception has not been clearly identified. The results of many conventional fMRI studies suggested that various areas 6, 9, 19, 32 and 38 in Brodmann s area (BA) were activated by motion-defined pattern stimuli [3]. However, it is not evident from these results whether they were elicited for motion perception itself or for the pattern perception. 

Johansson, G. Visual motion perception. Scientific American 232, 76-89 (1975)... 

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