Object-motion detection affected by concurrent self-motion perception: psychophysics of a new phenomenon.
Thresholds for object-motion detection are significantly raised when concurrent self-motion perception is induced by either vestibular, or visual, or cervico-somatosensory stimulation. Active sinusoidal horizontal head oscillations with compensatory vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) and foveal or eccentrical target presentation; 'passive' head movements with fixation suppression of the VOR; pure body oscillations with the head fixed in space (cervical stimulation); optokinetically induced apparent self-motion (circularvection). This new visual phenomenon of a physiological 'inhibitory interaction' between object- and self-motion perception seems to have a somatosensory motor analogue. It may reflect the disadventageous side effect due to unspecificness of an otherwise beneficial space constancy mechanism, which provides us with the image of a stable world during locomotion.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006257:Head; D006801:Humans; D007699:Kinesthesis / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012027:Reflex, Vestibulo-Ocular