The processes underlying dynamic changes in human behavior during real situations contain much irrelevant information and represent a key issue facing neuroscientists. Although the roles played by the frontal cortex in this switching behavior have been well documented, little is known regarding how neural pathways governing sensorimotor associations accomplish such a switch. We addressed this question by recording activities of middle temporal (MT) neurons in monkeys switching between direction versus depth discrimination tasks. Although the monkeys successfully switched between the tasks, neural sensitivity did not change as a function of task. More importantly, neurons that signaled the same motor output showed trial-to-trial covariation between neuronal responses and perceptual judgments during both tasks, whereas neurons that signaled the opposite motor output showed no covariation in either task. These results suggest that task switching is accomplished via communication from distinct populations of neurons when sensorimotor associations switch within a short time period.

We use visual image motion to judge the movement of objects, as well as our own movements through the environment. Generally, image motion components caused by object motion and self-motion are confounded in the retinal image. Thus, to estimate heading, the brain would ideally marginalize out the effects of object motion (or vice versa), but little is known about how this is accomplished neurally. Behavioral studies suggest that vestibular signals play a role in dissociating object motion and self-motion, and recent computational work suggests that a linear decoder can approximate marginalization by taking advantage of diverse multisensory representations. By measuring responses of MSTd neurons in two male rhesus monkeys and by applying a recently-developed method to approximate marginalization by linear population decoding, we tested the hypothesis that vestibular signals help to dissociate self-motion and object motion. We show that vestibular signals stabilize tuning for heading in neurons with congruent visual and vestibular heading preferences, whereas they stabilize tuning for object motion in neurons with discrepant preferences. Thus, vestibular signals enhance the separability of joint tuning for object motion and self-motion. We further show that a linear decoder, designed to approximate marginalization, allows the population to represent either self-motion or object motion with good accuracy. Decoder weights are broadly consistent with a readout strategy, suggested by recent computational work, in which responses are decoded according to the vestibular preferences of multisensory neurons. These results demonstrate, at both single neuron and population levels, that vestibular signals help to dissociate self-motion and object motion.

Using a new ring-shear apparatus with a transparent shear box and video image analysis system, drained and undrained speed-controlled tests were conducted on coarse-grained silica sands to study the shear-zone formation process in granular materials. Velocity distribution profiles of grains under shear at various stages in the ring shear tests were observed through processing the video image by the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) program. Shear-zone thickness and type of shear mode (slide-like or flow-like) during shear were observed. Before reaching peak strength in low-speed and drained condition test, a comparatively major part of the sample in the upper shear box showed a velocity distribution profile of structural deformation and dilatancy behavior. After peak strength, the velocity profile changed into a slide-like mode and thereafter showed almost no change. In higher speed tests with drained and undrained conditions, an almost slide-like mode was observed, compared to low-speed test. Apparent shear-zone thicknesses of high-speed tests are thinner than low-speed tests. Unexpectedly, almost no difference was observed in the shear-zone thickness and mode of shear (slide or flow-like) between drained and undrained tests. This study was conducted as part of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) M101 "Areal prediction of earthquake and rain induced rapid and long-traveling flow phenomena (APERITIF)" of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). These results will contribute to understanding the mechanism of shear-zone development in granular materials as a basic knowledge for disaster risk mitigation of rapid long run-out landslides.

Neurons represent spatial information in diverse reference frames, but it remains unclear whether neural reference frames change with task demands and whether these changes can account for behavior. We examined how neurons represent the direction of a moving object during self-motion, while monkeys switched, from trial to trial, between reporting object direction in head- and world-centered reference frames. Self-motion information is needed to compute object motion in world coordinates, but should be ignored when judging object motion in head coordinates. Neural responses in the ventral intraparietal area are modulated by the task reference frame, such that population activity represents object direction in either reference frame. In contrast, responses in the lateral portion of the medial superior temporal area primarily represent object motion in head coordinates. Our findings demonstrate a neural representation of object motion that changes with task requirements.