Opposite dependencies on visual motion coherence in human area MT+ and early visual cortex

Estimating neural activity from visual areas using functionally defined EEG templates

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a common and inexpensive method to record neural activity in humans. However, it lacks spatial resolution making it difficult to determine which areas of the brain are responsible for the observed EEG response. Here we present a new easy-to-use method that relies on EEG topographical templates. Using MRI and fMRI scans of 50 participants, we simulated how the activity in each visual area appears on the scalp and averaged this signal to produce functionally defined EEG templates. Once created, these templates can be used to estimate how much each visual area contributes to the observed EEG activity. We tested this method on extensive simulations and on real data. The proposed procedure is as good as bespoke individual source localization methods, robust to a wide range of factors, and has several strengths. First, because it does not rely on individual brain scans, it is inexpensive and can be used on any EEG data set, past or present. Second, the results are readily interpretable in terms of functional brain regions and can be compared across neuroimaging techniques. Finally, this method is easy to understand, simple to use and expandable to other brain sources.

Look where you go: Characterizing eye movements toward optic flow

When we move through our environment, objects in the visual scene create optic flow patterns on the retina. Even though optic flow is ubiquitous in everyday life, it is not well understood how our eyes naturally respond to it. In small groups of human and non-human primates, optic flow triggers intuitive, uninstructed eye movements to the focus of expansion of the pattern (Knöll, Pillow, & Huk, 2018). Here, we investigate whether such intuitive oculomotor responses to optic flow are generalizable to a larger group of human observers and how eye movements are affected by motion signal strength and task instructions. Observers (N = 43) viewed expanding or contracting optic flow constructed by a cloud of moving dots radiating from or converging toward a focus of expansion that could randomly shift. Results show that 84% of observers tracked the focus of expansion with their eyes without being explicitly instructed to track. Intuitive tracking was tuned to motion signal strength: Saccades landed closer to the focus of expansion, and smooth tracking was more accurate when dot contrast, motion coherence, and translational speed were high. Under explicit tracking instruction, the eyes aligned with the focus of expansion more closely than without instruction. Our results highlight the sensitivity of intuitive eye movements as indicators of visual motion processing in dynamic contexts.

Expectations about motion direction affect perception and anticipatory smooth pursuit differently

Smooth pursuit eye movements and visual motion perception rely on the integration of current sensory signals with past experience. Experience shapes our expectation of current visual events and can drive eye movement responses made in anticipation of a target, such as anticipatory pursuit. Previous research revealed consistent effects of expectation on anticipatory pursuit-eye movements follow the expected target direction or speed-and contrasting effects on motion perception, but most studies considered either eye movement or perceptual responses. The current study directly compared effects of direction expectation on perception and anticipatory pursuit within the same direction discrimination task to investigate whether both types of responses are affected similarly or differently. Observers (n = 10) viewed high-coherence random-dot kinematograms (RDKs) moving rightward and leftward with a probability of 50%, 70%, or 90% in a given block of trials to build up an expectation of motion direction. They were asked to judge motion direction of interleaved low-coherence RDKs (0%-15%). Perceptual judgements were compared with changes in anticipatory pursuit eye movements as a function of probability. Results show that anticipatory pursuit velocity scaled with probability and followed direction expectation (attraction bias), whereas perceptual judgments were biased opposite to direction expectation (repulsion bias). Control experiments suggest that the repulsion bias in perception was not caused by retinal slip induced by anticipatory pursuit, or by motion adaptation. We conclude that direction expectation can be processed differently for perception and anticipatory pursuit.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We show that expectations about motion direction that are based on long-term trial history affect perception and anticipatory pursuit differently. Whereas anticipatory pursuit direction was coherent with the expected motion direction (attraction bias), perception was biased opposite to the expected direction (repulsion bias). These opposite biases potentially reveal different ways in which perception and action utilize prior information and support the idea of different information processing for perception and pursuit.

Neural mechanisms of visual sensitive periods in humans

Sensitive periods in brain development are phases of enhanced susceptibility to experience. Here we discuss research from human and non-human neuroscience studies which have demonstrated a) differences in the way infants vs. adults learn; b) how the brain adapts to atypical conditions, in particular a congenital vs. a late onset blindness (sensitive periods for atypical brain development); and c) the extent to which neural systems are capable of acquiring a typical brain organization after sight restoration following a congenital vs. late phase of pattern vision deprivation (sensitive periods for typical brain development). By integrating these three lines of research, we propose neural mechanisms characteristic of sensitive periods vs. adult neuroplasticity and learning.

Biological Action Identification Does Not Require Early Visual Input for Development

Visual input during the first years of life is vital for the development of numerous visual functions. While normal development of global motion perception seems to require visual input during an early sensitive period, the detection of biological motion (BM) does not seem to do so. A more complex form of BM processing is the identification of human actions. Here, we tested whether identification rather than detection of BM is experience dependent. A group of human participants who had been treated for congenital cataracts (CC; of up to 18 years in duration, CC group) had to identify ten actions performed by human line figures. In addition, they performed a coherent motion (CM) detection task, which required identifying the direction of CM amid the movement of random dots. As controls, developmental cataract (DC) reversal individuals (DC group) who had undergone the same surgical treatment as CC group were included. Moreover, normally sighted controls were tested both with vision blurred to match the visual acuity (VA) of CC individuals [vision matched (VM) group] and with full sight [sighted control (SC) group]. The CC group identified biological actions with an extraordinary high accuracy (on average ∼85% correct) and was indistinguishable from the VM control group. By contrast, CM processing impairments of the CC group persisted even after controlling for VA. These results in the same individuals demonstrate an impressive resilience of BM processing to aberrant early visual experience and at the same time a sensitive period for the development of CM processing.

Right frontal eye field has perceptual and oculomotor functions during optokinetic stimulation and nystagmus

The right frontal eye field (rFEF) is associated with visual perception and eye movements. rFEF is activated during optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), a reflex that moves the eye in response to visual motion (optokinetic stimulation, OKS). It remains unclear whether rFEF plays causal perceptual and/or oculomotor roles during OKS and OKN. To test this, participants viewed a leftward-moving visual scene of vertical bars and judged whether a flashed dot was moving. Single pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) were applied to rFEF on half of trials. In half of blocks, to explore oculomotor control, participants performed an OKN in response to the OKS. rFEF TMS, during OKN, made participants more accurate on trials when the dot was still, and it slowed eye movements. In separate blocks, participants fixated during OKS. This not only controlled for eye movements but also allowed the use of EEG to explore the FEF's role in visual motion discrimination. In these blocks, by contrast, leftward dot motion discrimination was impaired, associated with a disruption of the frontal-posterior balance in alpha-band oscillations. None of these effects occurred in a control site (M1) experiment. These results demonstrate multiple related yet dissociable causal roles of the right FEF during optokinetic stimulation.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study demonstrates causal roles of the right frontal eye field (FEF) in motion discrimination and eye movement control during visual scene motion: previous work had only examined other stimuli and eye movements such as saccades. Using combined transcranial magnetic stimulation and EEG and a novel optokinetic stimulation motion-discrimination task, we find evidence for multiple related yet dissociable causal roles within the FEF: perceptual processing during optokinetic stimulation, generation of the optokinetic nystagmus, and the maintenance of alpha oscillations.

Remediation of perceptual organisation in schizophrenia

Introduction Impaired perceptual organisation in schizophrenia has been repeatedly described in clinical and research literatures. It has also been associated with problems in more complex aspects of visual function, including visuospatial and visual cognitive test performance. Two therapeutic interventions were developed here that target perceptual organisation: (1) Computer-based training, which emphasized stimulus-driven processing (bottom-up approach), and (2) Instrumental Enrichment therapy, which is a therapist-guided interactive learning method (top-down approach). Methods Twenty-eight patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder participated in a 12-week programme. For both forms of interventions, task difficulty increased progressively, based upon successful performance. The third group of patients, which served as controls, received a similar therapeutic intervention that did not include a perceptual organisation component. Before and after intervention, participants received tests of perceptual organisation, as well as a battery of neuropsychological tests. Results Results indicate that both forms of intervention improved perceptual organisation ability relative to the control condition. In addition, the improvement was found for select neuropsychological tests, although the pattern of improvement did not favour capacities more closely associated with visual organisational or visuospatial function. Conclusions Together, results demonstrate the effectiveness of new remediation protocols that target mid-level visual processing, which generalized to select visual cognitive functions.

The effects of high-frequency transcranial random noise stimulation (hf-tRNS) on global motion processing: An equivalent noise approach

BACKGROUND

High frequency transcranial random noise stimulation (hf-tRNS) facilitates performance in several perceptual and cognitive tasks, however, little is known about the underlying modulatory mechanisms.

OBJECTIVE

In this study we compared the effects of hf-tRNS to those of anodal and cathodal tDCS in a global motion direction discrimination task. An equivalent noise (EN) paradigm was used to assess how hf-tRNS modulates the mechanisms underlying local and global motion processing.

METHOD

Motion coherence threshold and slope of the psychometric function were estimated using an 8AFC task in which observers had to discriminate the motion direction of a random dot kinematogram presented either in the left or right visual hemi-field. During the task hf-tRNS, anodal and cathodal tDCS were delivered over the left hMT⁺. In a subsequent experiment we implemented an EN paradigm in order to investigate the effects of hf-tRNS on the mechanisms involved in visual motion integration (i.e., internal noise and sampling).

RESULTS

hf-tRNS reduced the motion coherence threshold but did not affect the slope of the psychometric function, suggesting no modulation of stimulus discriminability. Anodal and cathodal tDCS did not produce any modulatory effects. EN analysis in the last experiment found that hf-tRNS modulates sampling but not internal noise, suggesting that hf-tRNS modulates the integration of local motion cues.

CONCLUSION

hf-tRNS interacts with the output neurons tuned to directions near to the directional signal, incrementing the signal-to-noise ratio and the pooling of local motion cues and thus increasing the sensitivity for global moving stimuli.

A quantitative framework for motion visibility in human cortex

Despite the central use of motion visibility to reveal the neural basis of perception, perceptual decision making, and sensory inference there exists no comprehensive quantitative framework establishing how motion visibility parameters modulate human cortical response. Random-dot motion stimuli can be made less visible by reducing image contrast or motion coherence, or by shortening the stimulus duration. Because each of these manipulations modulates the strength of sensory neural responses they have all been extensively used to reveal cognitive and other nonsensory phenomena such as the influence of priors, attention, and choice-history biases. However, each of these manipulations is thought to influence response in different ways across different cortical regions and a comprehensive study is required to interpret this literature. Here, human participants observed random-dot stimuli varying across a large range of contrast, coherence, and stimulus durations as we measured blood-oxygen-level dependent responses. We developed a framework for modeling these responses that quantifies their functional form and sensitivity across areas. Our framework demonstrates the sensitivity of all visual areas to each parameter, with early visual areas V1-V4 showing more parametric sensitivity to changes in contrast and V3A and the human middle temporal area to coherence. Our results suggest that while motion contrast, coherence, and duration share cortical representation, they are encoded with distinct functional forms and sensitivity. Thus, our quantitative framework serves as a reference for interpretation of the vast perceptual literature manipulating these parameters and shows that different manipulations of visibility will have different effects across human visual cortex and need to be interpreted accordingly. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Manipulations of motion visibility have served as a key tool for understanding the neural basis for visual perception. Here we measured human cortical response to changes in visibility across a comprehensive range of motion visibility parameters and modeled these with a quantitative framework. Our quantitative framework can be used as a reference for linking human cortical response to perception and underscores that different manipulations of motion visibility can have greatly different effects on cortical representation.

Age-Related Changes in Global Motion Coherence: Conflicting Haemodynamic and Perceptual Responses

Our aim was to use both behavioural and neuroimaging data to identify indicators of perceptual decline in motion processing. We employed a global motion coherence task and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Healthy adults (n = 72, 18-85) were recruited into the following groups: young (n = 28, mean age = 28), middle-aged (n = 22, mean age = 50), and older adults (n = 23, mean age = 70). Participants were assessed on their motion coherence thresholds at 3 different speeds using a psychophysical design. As expected, we report age group differences in motion processing as demonstrated by higher motion coherence thresholds in older adults. Crucially, we add correlational data showing that global motion perception declines linearly as a function of age. The associated fNIRS recordings provide a clear physiological correlate of global motion perception. The crux of this study lies in the robust linear correlation between age and haemodynamic response for both measures of oxygenation. We hypothesise that there is an increase in neural recruitment, necessitating an increase in metabolic need and blood flow, which presents as a higher oxygenated haemoglobin response. We report age-related changes in motion perception with poorer behavioural performance (high motion coherence thresholds) associated with an increased haemodynamic response.

Functional correlate and delineated connectivity pattern of human motion aftereffect responses substantiate a subjacent visual-vestibular interaction

The visual motion aftereffect (MAE) is the most prominent aftereffect in the visual system. Regarding its function, psychophysical studies suggest its function to be a form of sensory error correction, possibly also triggered by incongruent visual-vestibular stimulation. Several observational imaging experiments have deducted an essential role for region MT+ in the perception of a visual MAE but not provided conclusive evidence. Potential confounders with the MAE such as ocular motor performance, attention, and vection sensations have also never been controlled for. Aim of this neuroimaging study was to delineate the neural correlates of MAE and its subjacent functional connectivity pattern. A rotational MAE (n = 22) was induced using differing visual stimuli whilst modulating ocular motor parameters in a 3T scanner. Data was analyzed with SPM12. Eye movements as a response to the same stimuli were studied by means of high-resolution videooculography. Analysis for all stimuli gave bilateral activations along the dorsal visual stream with an emphasis on area MT. The onset of a visual MAE revealed an additional response in the right medial superior temporal area (MST) and a concurrent deactivation of vestibular hub region OP2. There was no correlation for the BOLD effects during the MAE with either ocular motor or attention parameters. The functional correlate of a visual MAE in humans may be represented in the interaction between region MT and area MST. This MAE representation is independent of a potential afternystagmus, attention and the presence of egomotion sensations. Connectivity analyses showed that in the event of conflicting visual-vestibular motion information (here MAE) area MST and area OP2 may act as the relevant mediating network hubs.

Responses in early visual areas to contour integration are context dependent

It has been shown that early visual areas are involved in contour processing. However, it is not clear how local and global context interact to influence responses in those areas, nor has the interarea coordination that yields coherent structural percepts been fully studied, especially in human observers. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure activity in early visual cortex while observers performed a contour detection task in which alignment of Gabor elements and background clutter were manipulated. Six regions of interest (two regions, containing either the cortex representing the target or the background clutter, in each of areas V1, V2, and V3) were predefined using separate target versus background functional localizer scans. The first analysis using a general linear model showed that in the presence of background clutter, responses in V1 and V2 target regions of interest were significantly stronger to aligned than unaligned contours, whereas when background clutter was absent, no significant difference was observed. The second analysis using interarea correlations showed that with background clutter, there was an increase in V1–V2 coordination within the target regions when perceiving aligned versus unaligned contours; without clutter, however, correlations between V1 and V2 were similar no matter whether aligned contours were present or not. Both the average response magnitude and the connectivity analysis suggest different mechanisms support contour processing with or without background distractors. Coordination between V1 and V2 may play a major role in coherent structure perception, especially with complex scene organization.

Local and interregional alpha EEG dynamics dissociate between memory for search and memory for recognition

Attention during visual search is thought to be guided by an active visual working memory (VWM) representation of the search target. We tested the hypothesis that a VWM representation used for searching a target among competing information (a "search template") is distinct from VWM representations used for simple recognition tasks, without competition. We analyzed EEG from 20 human participants while they performed three different VWM-based visual detection tasks. All tasks started with identical lateralized VWM cues, but differed with respect to the presence and nature of competing distractors during the target display at test, where participants performed a simple recognition task without distractors, or visual search in pop-out (distinct) and serial (non-distinct) search displays. Performance was worst for non-distinct search, and best for simple recognition. During the one second delay period between cue and test, we observed robust suppression of EEG dynamics in the alpha (8-14Hz) band over parieto-occipital sites contralateral to the relevant VWM item, both in terms of local power as well as interregional phase synchrony within a posterior-parietal network. Importantly, these lateralization dynamics were more strongly expressed prior to search compared to simple recognition. Furthermore, before the VWM cue, alpha phase synchrony between prefrontal and mid-posterior-parietal sites was strongest for non-distinct search, reflecting enhanced anticipatory control prior to VWM encoding. Directional connectivity analyses confirmed this effect to be in an anterior-to-posterior direction. Together, these results provide evidence for frontally mediated top-down control of VWM in preparation of visual search.

Sight restoration after congenital blindness does not reinstate alpha oscillatory activity in humans

Functional brain development is characterized by sensitive periods during which experience must be available to allow for the full development of neural circuits and associated behavior. Yet, only few neural markers of sensitive period plasticity in humans are known. Here we employed electroencephalographic recordings in a unique sample of twelve humans who had been blind from birth and regained sight through cataract surgery between four months and 16 years of age. Two additional control groups were tested: a group of visually impaired individuals without a history of total congenital blindness and a group of typically sighted individuals. The EEG was recorded while participants performed a visual discrimination task involving intact and scrambled biological motion stimuli. Posterior alpha and theta oscillations were evaluated. The three groups showed indistinguishable behavioral performance and in all groups evoked theta activity varied with biological motion processing. By contrast, alpha oscillatory activity was significantly reduced only in individuals with a history of congenital cataracts. These data document on the one hand brain mechanisms of functional recovery (related to theta oscillations) and on the other hand, for the first time, a sensitive period for the development of alpha oscillatory activity in humans.

Metacognitive Confidence Increases with, but Does Not Determine, Visual Perceptual Learning

While perceptual learning increases objective sensitivity, the effects on the constant interaction of the process of perception and its metacognitive evaluation have been rarely investigated. Visual perception has been described as a process of probabilistic inference featuring metacognitive evaluations of choice certainty. For visual motion perception in healthy, naive human subjects here we show that perceptual sensitivity and confidence in it increased with training. The metacognitive sensitivity–estimated from certainty ratings by a bias-free signal detection theoretic approach–in contrast, did not. Concomitant 3Hz transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) was applied in compliance with previous findings on effective high-low cross-frequency coupling subserving signal detection. While perceptual accuracy and confidence in it improved with training, there were no statistically significant tACS effects. Neither metacognitive sensitivity in distinguishing between their own correct and incorrect stimulus classifications, nor decision confidence itself determined the subjects’ visual perceptual learning. Improvements of objective performance and the metacognitive confidence in it were rather determined by the perceptual sensitivity at the outset of the experiment. Post-decision certainty in visual perceptual learning was neither independent of objective performance, nor requisite for changes in sensitivity, but rather covaried with objective performance. The exact functional role of metacognitive confidence in human visual perception has yet to be determined.

Human visual cortical responses to specular and matte motion flows

Determining the compositional properties of surfaces in the environment is an important visual capacity. One such property is specular reflectance, which encompasses the range from matte to shiny surfaces. Visual estimation of specular reflectance can be informed by characteristic motion profiles; a surface with a specular reflectance that is difficult to determine while static can be confidently disambiguated when set in motion. Here, we used fMRI to trace the sensitivity of human visual cortex to such motion cues, both with and without photometric cues to specular reflectance. Participants viewed rotating blob-like objects that were rendered as images (photometric) or dots (kinematic) with either matte-consistent or shiny-consistent specular reflectance profiles. We were unable to identify any areas in low and mid-level human visual cortex that responded preferentially to surface specular reflectance from motion. However, univariate and multivariate analyses identified several visual areas; V1, V2, V3, V3A/B, and hMT+, capable of differentiating shiny from matte surface flows. These results indicate that the machinery for extracting kinematic cues is present in human visual cortex, but the areas involved in integrating such information with the photometric cues necessary for surface specular reflectance remain unclear.

The steady-state visual evoked potential in vision research: A review

Periodic visual stimulation and analysis of the resulting steady-state visual evoked potentials were first introduced over 80 years ago as a means to study visual sensation and perception. From the first single-channel recording of responses to modulated light to the present use of sophisticated digital displays composed of complex visual stimuli and high-density recording arrays, steady-state methods have been applied in a broad range of scientific and applied settings.The purpose of this article is to describe the fundamental stimulation paradigms for steady-state visual evoked potentials and to illustrate these principles through research findings across a range of applications in vision science.

Motion area V5/MT+ response to global motion in the absence of V1 resembles early visual cortex

Motion area V5/MT+ shows a variety of characteristic visual responses, often linked to perception, which are heavily influenced by its rich connectivity with the primary visual cortex (V1). This human motion area also receives a number of inputs from other visual regions, including direct subcortical connections and callosal connections with the contralateral hemisphere. Little is currently known about such alternative inputs to V5/MT+ and how they may drive and influence its activity. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the response of human V5/MT+ to increasing the proportion of coherent motion was measured in seven patients with unilateral V1 damage acquired during adulthood, and a group of healthy age-matched controls. When V1 was damaged, the typical V5/MT+ response to increasing coherence was lost. Rather, V5/MT+ in patients showed a negative trend with coherence that was similar to coherence-related activity in V1 of healthy control subjects. This shift to a response-pattern more typical of early visual cortex suggests that in the absence of V1, V5/MT+ activity may be shaped by similar direct subcortical input. This is likely to reflect intact residual pathways rather than a change in connectivity, and has important implications for blindsight function. It also confirms predictions that V1 is critically involved in normal V5/MT+ global motion processing, consistent with a convergent model of V1 input to V5/MT+. Historically, most attempts to model cortical visual responses do not consider the contribution of direct subcortical inputs that may bypass striate cortex, such as input to V5/MT+. We have shown that the signal change driven by these non-striate pathways can be measured, and suggest that models of the intact visual system may benefit from considering their contribution.

Functional signalers of changes in visual stimuli: cortical responses to increments and decrements in motion coherence

How does our brain detect changes in a natural scene? While changes by increments of specific visual attributes, such as contrast or motion coherence, can be signaled by an increase in neuronal activity in early visual areas, like the primary visual cortex (V1) or the human middle temporal complex (hMT+), respectively, the mechanisms for signaling changes resulting from decrements in a stimulus attribute are largely unknown. We have discovered opposing patterns of cortical responses to changes in motion coherence: unlike areas hMT+, V3A and parieto-occipital complex (V6+) that respond to changes in the level of motion coherence monotonically, human areas V4 (hV4), V3B, and ventral occipital always respond positively to both transient increments and decrements. This pattern of responding always positively to stimulus changes can emerge in the presence of either coherence-selective neuron populations, or neurons that are not tuned to particular coherences but adapt to a particular coherence level in a stimulus-selective manner. Our findings provide evidence that these areas possess physiological properties suited for signaling increments and decrements in a stimulus and may form a part of cortical vigilance system for detecting salient changes in the environment.

Selective attention increases choice certainty in human decision making

Choice certainty is a probabilistic estimate of past performance and expected outcome. In perceptual decisions the degree of confidence correlates closely with choice accuracy and reaction times, suggesting an intimate relationship to objective performance. Here we show that spatial and feature-based attention increase human subjects' certainty more than accuracy in visual motion discrimination tasks. Our findings demonstrate for the first time a dissociation of choice accuracy and certainty with a significantly stronger influence of voluntary top-down attention on subjective performance measures than on objective performance. These results reveal a so far unknown mechanism of the selection process implemented by attention and suggest a unique biological valence of choice certainty beyond a faithful reflection of the decision process.

Attentional modulation of neuromagnetic evoked responses in early human visual cortex and parietal lobe following a rank-order rule

Top-down voluntary attention modulates the amplitude of magnetic evoked fields in the human visual cortex. Whether such modulation is flexible enough to adapt to the demands of complex tasks in which abstract rules must be applied to select a target in the presence of distracters remains unclear. We recorded brain neuromagnetic activity using whole-head magnetoencephalography in 14 human subjects during a rule-guided target selection task, and applied event-related Synthetic Aperture Magnetometry to image instantaneous changes in neuromagnetic source activity throughout the brain. During the task subjects selected one of two stimuli (the target) and ignored the other (the distracter) based on a color-rank rule (color 1 > color 2 > color 3). Our results revealed that in early visual color-sensitive areas and the parietal cortex visual stimuli evoke activity that scaled following the rank-order rule. This effect was stronger and occurred later in the parietal lobe (~200 ms after target/distracter onset) relative to early visual areas (~180 ms). Moreover, we found that transient changes in the target's motion direction evoked stronger responses relative to similar changes in the distracter at ~180 ms from change onset in contralateral areas hMT+/V5. These results suggest that during target selection and allocation of attention to a stimulus, top-down signals adjust their intensity following complex selection rules according to the organism's priorities, thereby differentially modulating neuromagnetic activity across visual cortical areas.

Alpha Oscillations Correlate with the Successful Inhibition of Unattended Stimuli

Because the human visual system is continually being bombarded with inputs, it is necessary to have effective mechanisms for filtering out irrelevant information. This is partly achieved by the allocation of attention, allowing the visual system to process relevant input while blocking out irrelevant input. What is the physiological substrate of attentional allocation? It has been proposed that alpha activity reflects functional inhibition. Here we asked if inhibition by alpha oscillations has behavioral consequences for suppressing the perception of unattended input. To this end, we investigated the influence of alpha activity on motion processing in two attentional conditions using magneto-encephalography. The visual stimuli used consisted of two random-dot kinematograms presented simultaneously to the left and right visual hemifields. Subjects were cued to covertly attend the left or right kinematogram. After 1.5 sec, a second cue tested whether subjects could report the direction of coherent motion in the attended (80%) or unattended hemifield (20%). Occipital alpha power was higher contralateral to the unattended side than to the attended side, thus suggesting inhibition of the unattended hemifield. Our key finding is that this alpha lateralization in the 20% invalidly cued trials did correlate with the perception of motion direction: Subjects with pronounced alpha lateralization were worse at detecting motion direction in the unattended hemifield. In contrast, lateralization did not correlate with visual discrimination in the attended visual hemifield. Our findings emphasize the suppressive nature of alpha oscillations and suggest that processing of inputs outside the field of attention is weakened by means of increased alpha activity.

Increased Alpha-Band Power during the Retention of Shapes and Shape-Location Associations in Visual Short-Term Memory

Studies exploring the role of neural oscillations in cognition have revealed sustained increases in alpha-band (~8-14 Hz) power during the delay period of delayed-recognition short-term memory tasks. These increases have been proposed to reflect the inhibition, for example, of cortical areas representing task-irrelevant information, or of potentially interfering representations from previous trials. Another possibility, however, is that elevated delay-period alpha-band power (DPABP) reflects the selection and maintenance of information, rather than, or in addition to, the inhibition of task-irrelevant information. In the present study, we explored these possibilities using a delayed-recognition paradigm in which the presence and task relevance of shape information was systematically manipulated across trial blocks and electroencephalographic was used to measure alpha-band power. In the first trial block, participants remembered locations marked by identical black circles. The second block featured the same instructions, but locations were marked by unique shapes. The third block featured the same stimulus presentation as the second, but with pretrial instructions indicating, on a trial-by-trial basis, whether memory for shape or location was required, the other dimension being irrelevant. In the final block, participants remembered the unique pairing of shape and location for each stimulus. Results revealed minimal DPABP in each of the location-memory conditions, whether locations were marked with identical circles or with unique task-irrelevant shapes. In contrast, alpha-band power increases were observed in both the shape-memory condition, in which location was task irrelevant, and in the critical final condition, in which both shape and location were task relevant. These results provide support for the proposal that alpha-band oscillations reflect the retention of shape information and/or shape-location associations in short-term memory.

Feature-based attention modulates direction-selective hemodynamic activity within human MT

Attending to the spatial location or to nonspatial features of a stimulus modulates neural activity in cortical areas that process its perceptual attributes. The feature-based attentional selection of the direction of a moving stimulus is associated with increased firing of individual neurons tuned to the direction of the movement in area V5/MT, while responses of neurons tuned to opposite directions are suppressed. However, it is not known how these multiplicatively scaled responses of individual neurons tuned to different motion-directions are integrated at the population level, in order to facilitate the processing of stimuli that match the perceptual goals. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) the present study revealed that attending to the movement direction of a dot field enhances the response in a number of areas including the human MT region (hMT) as a function of the coherence of the stimulus. Attending the opposite direction, however, lead to a suppressed response in hMT that was inversely correlated with stimulus-coherence. These findings demonstrate that the multiplicative scaling of single-neuron responses by feature-based attention results in an enhanced direction-selective population response within those cortical modules that processes the physical attributes of the attended stimuli. Our results provide strong support for the validity of the "feature similarity gain model" on the integrated population response as quantified by parametric fMRI in humans.

Motion-onset visual evoked potentials predict performance during a global direction discrimination task

The relationship between cognitive processing stages and event-related potential components has been extensively researched for single components, but even the simplest task comprises multiple electrophysiological and cognitive components. Here we examined the relationship between behavioral measures and several visual evoked potentials (VEPs) related to global motion onset during a visual motion discrimination task. In addition to reaction time and accuracy, the EZ diffusion model was used to characterize elements of the decision process. Results showed that latencies, but not amplitudes, from three VEP components reliably predicted about 40% of the variance in reaction times for motion discrimination. These included the latency from stimulus motion onset to N2 onset, the latency from N2 onset to N2 peak, and the latency from the N2 peak to the peak of a late positive potential. These latencies were also able to predict the rate of information accumulation during the decision process and the duration of non-decision processes, but not the observer's threshold (boundary) for making a response. This pattern of results is consistent with an interpretation of these three latencies as reflecting a non-specific visual perceptual process, a motion-specific process, and a decision process, respectively. The relationship between the earliest interval and drift rate estimated with the EZ model also supports the notion that early perceptual processing might be a constituent part of the decision process itself.

Electrophysiological correlates of learning-induced modulation of visual motion processing in humans

Training on a visual task leads to increased perceptual and neural responses to visual features that were attended during training as well as decreased responses to neglected distractor features. However, the time course of these attention-based modulations of neural sensitivity for visual features has not been investigated before. Here we measured event related potentials (ERP) in response to motion stimuli with different coherence levels before and after training on a speed discrimination task requiring object-based attentional selection of one of the two competing motion stimuli. We found that two peaks on the ERP waveform were modulated by the strength of the coherent motion signal; the response amplitude associated with motion directions that were neglected during training was smaller than the response amplitude associated with motion directions that were attended during training. The first peak of motion coherence-dependent modulation of the ERP responses was at 300 ms after stimulus onset and it was most pronounced over the occipitotemporal cortex. The second peak was around 500 ms and was focused over the parietal cortex. A control experiment suggests that the earlier motion coherence-related response modulation reflects the extraction of the coherent motion signal whereas the later peak might index accumulation and readout of motion signals by parietal decision mechanisms. These findings suggest that attention-based learning affects neural responses both at the sensory and decision processing stages.

Visual motion perception deficits due to cerebellar lesions are paralleled by specific changes in cerebro-cortical activity

Recent anatomical studies have revealed strong cerebellar projections into parietal and prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that the cerebellum might not only play a functional role in motor control but also cognitive domains, an idea also supported by neuropsychological testing of patients with cerebellar lesions that has revealed specific deficits. The goal of the present study was to test whether or not cognitive impairments after cerebellar damage are resulting from changes in cerebro-cortical signal processing. The detection of global visual motion embedded in noise, a faculty compromised after cerebellar lesions, was chosen as a model system. Using magnetoencephalography, cortical responses were recorded in a group of patients with cerebellar lesions (n = 8) and controls (n = 13) who observed visual motion of varied coherence, i.e., motion strength, presented in the peripheral visual field during controlled stationary fixation. Corroborating earlier results, the patients showed a significant impairment in global motion discrimination despite normal fixation behavior. This deficit was paralleled by qualitative differences in responses recorded from parieto-temporal cortex, including a reduced responsiveness to coherent visual motion and a striking loss of bilateral representations of motion coherence. Moreover, the perceptual thresholds correlated with the cortical representation of motion strength on single subject basis. These results demonstrate that visual motion processing in cerebral cortex critically depends on an intact cerebellum and establish a correlation between cortical activity and impaired visual perception resulting from cerebellar damage.

Spatio-temporal tuning of coherent motion evoked responses in 4-6 month old infants and adults

Motion cues provide a rich source of information about translations of the observer through the environment as well as the movements of objects and surfaces. While the direction of motion can be extracted locally these local measurements are, in general, insufficient for determining object and surface motions. To study the development of local and global motion processing mechanisms, we recorded Visual Evoked Potentials (VEPs) in response to dynamic random dot displays that alternated between coherent rotational motion and random motion at 0.8 Hz. We compared the spatio-temporal tuning of the evoked response in 4-6 months old infants to that of adults by recording over a range of dot displacements and temporal update rates. Responses recorded at the frequency of the coherent motion modulation were tuned for displacement at the occipital midline in both adults in infants. Responses at lateral electrodes were tuned for speed in adults, but not in infants. Infant responses were maximal at a larger range of spatial displacement than that of adults. In contrast, responses recorded at the dot-update rate showed a more similar parametric displacement tuning and scalp topography in infants and adults. Taken together, our results suggest that while local motion processing is relatively mature at 4-6 months, global integration mechanisms exhibit significant immaturities at this age.

Visual motion direction is represented in population-level neural response as measured by magnetoencephalography

We investigated whether direction information is represented in the population-level neural response evoked by the visual motion stimulus, as measured by magnetoencephalography. Coherent motions with varied speed, varied direction, and different coherence level were presented using random dot kinematography. Peak latency of responses to motion onset was inversely related to speed in all directions, as previously reported, but no significant effect of direction on latency changes was identified. Mutual information entropy (IE) calculated using four-direction response data increased significantly (>2.14) after motion onset in 41.3% of response data and maximum IE was distributed at approximately 20 ms after peak response latency. When response waveforms showing significant differences (by multivariate discriminant analysis) in distribution of the three waveform parameters (peak amplitude, peak latency, and 75% waveform width) with stimulus directions were analyzed, 87 waveform stimulus directions (80.6%) were correctly estimated using these parameters. Correct estimation rate was unaffected by stimulus speed, but was affected by coherence level, even though both speed and coherence affected response amplitude similarly. Our results indicate that speed and direction of stimulus motion are represented in the distinct properties of a response waveform, suggesting that the human brain processes speed and direction separately, at least in part.

Selective attention increases the dependency of cortical responses on visual motion coherence in man

Attention improves visual discrimination and consequently allows to discern stimuli with low signal-to-noise ratios that otherwise would remain undetected. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to test whether neuromagnetic responses recorded from occipito-temporal cortex, reflecting the size of visual motion signals embedded in noise (motion coherence), would mirror the perceptual changes induced by attention. Attention directed to a given hemifield increased and decreased the coherence modulation of the MEG response over contralateral and ipsilateral visual cortex, respectively, indicating a change in the neuronal signal-to-noise ratio at the population level.

Abnormalities of coherent motion processing in strabismic amblyopia: Visual-evoked potential measurements

Coherent motion responses of patients with mild to moderate strabismic amblyopia were compared to those of normals using visual-evoked potentials (VEPs). Responses were elicited by dynamic random-dot kinematograms that alternated at 0.83 Hz between globally coherent (left-right) and incoherent (random) motion states. Tuning curves were measured at the first harmonic of the global motion update rate (0.83 Hz) and at the first harmonic of the dot update rate (20 Hz) for spatial displacements 3.1 to 27.9 arcmin (1.6 to 9.3 deg/s). Responses locked to the changes in the global organization of the local direction vectors were an inverted U-shaped function of displacement/speed in the normal-vision observers and in the fellow eyes of the strabismus patients while the tuning function of the amblyopic eyes was shifted to larger displacements/higher speeds. Responses at the dot update rate were reduced in amplitude and altered in timing in both eyes of the patients. The results are consistent with both local and global deficits in motion processing in strabismic amblyopia.

Biological Motion Alters Coherent Motion Perception

When a movie presents a person walking, the background appears to move in the direction opposite to the person's gait. This study verified this backscroll illusion by presenting a point-light walker against a background of a random-dot cinematogram (RDC). The RDC consisted of some signal dots moving coherently either leftward or rightward among other noise dots moving randomly. The method of constant stimuli was used to vary the RDC in motion coherence from trial to trial by manipulating the direction and percentage of the signal dots. Six observers judged the perceived direction of coherent motion in a two-alternative forced-choice procedure. Response rates for coherent motion perception in the direction opposite to walking were evaluated as a function of motion coherence. The results showed that the psychometric function shifted toward the direction determined by a bias in the opposite direction to the walker. The mean threshold was about half as high as that in a control condition in which the positions of the point-lights were scrambled to impair the recognition of the walker. The results demonstrate that biological motion noticeably affects the appearance of motion coherence in the background.