title: A novel role for visual perspective cues in the neural computation of depth.
abstract: As we explore a scene, our eye movements add global patterns of motion to the retinal image, complicating visual motion produced by self-motion or moving objects. Conventionally, it has been assumed that extraretinal signals, such as efference copy of smooth pursuit commands, are required to compensate for the visual consequences of eye rotations. We consider an alternative possibility: namely, that the visual system can infer eye rotations from global patterns of image motion. We visually simulated combinations of eye translation and rotation, including perspective distortions that change dynamically over time. We found that incorporating these 'dynamic perspective' cues allowed the visual system to generate selectivity for depth sign from motion parallax in macaque cortical area MT, a computation that was previously thought to require extraretinal signals regarding eye velocity. Our findings suggest neural mechanisms that analyze global patterns of visual motion to perform computations that require knowledge of eye rotations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA.
authors.forename: HyungGoo R
authors.identifier: 0000000291064960
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Dora E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Angelaki
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Gregory C
authors.identifier: 0000000216351273
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: DeAngelis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D003867:Depth Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D018408:Patch-Clamp Techniques; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*