Human motion perception and smooth eye movements show similar directional biases for elongated apertures.
Although numerous studies have examined the relationship between smooth-pursuit eye movements and motion perception, it remains unresolved whether a common motion-processing system subserves both perception and pursuit. To address this question, we simultaneously recorded perceptual direction judgments and the concomitant smooth eye-movement response to a plaid stimulus that we have previously shown generates systematic perceptual errors. We measured the perceptual direction biases psychophysically and the smooth eye-movement direction biases using two methods (standard averaging and oculometric analysis). We found that the perceptual and oculomotor biases were nearly identical, suggesting that pursuit and perception share a critical motion processing stage, perhaps in area MT or MST of extrastriate visual cortex.
Beutter
B R
BR
NASA Ames Research Center, Human Information Processing Research Branch, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000, USA. brent@vision.arc.nasa.gov
Stone
L S
LS
D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D011594:Psychometrics; D011601:Psychophysics; D011698:Pursuit, Smooth / Q000502:physiology*; D012399:Rotation