Hysteresis in the perception of motion direction as evidence for neural cooperativity

Williams, Douglas W.; Phillips, Gregory C.; Sekuler, Robert

doi:10.1038/324253a0

Cited by 150 publications

(93 citation statements)

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“…Hysteresis in motion perception has previously been observed for competition between the perception of coherent and incoherent motion (Williams, Phillips, & Sekuler, 1986) and competition between the perception of horizontal and vertical motion (Hock et al 1993). It was observed in the present study for competition between the perception ofsingle-element apparent motion and the perception of nonmotion.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 63%

Dynamic, state-dependent thresholds for the perception of single-element apparent motion: Bistability from local cooperativity

Hock

Kogan

Espinoza

1997

Perception & Psychophysics

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Previous studies have indicated that the formation of coherent patterns for multielement motion displays depends on global cooperative interactions among large ensembles of spatially distributed motion detectors. These interactions enhance certain motion directions and suppress others. It is reported here that perceiving one element moving between two nearby locations likewise is subject to cooperative influences (possibly facilitating and inhibiting interactions within a local ensemble of overlapping detectors). Thresholds depending on luminance contrast were measured for a generalized singleelement apparent-motion stimulus, and evidence for spontaneous switching and hysteresis effects indicated that motion perception near the 50% threshold was bistable. That is, for conditions in which motion and nonmotion were perceived half the time, the two percepts were distinct; when one was perceived, it clearly was discriminable from the other. These results indicated that (1) single-element apparent-motion thresholds depended on the immediately preceding state of the ensemble of motion detectors responding to the stimulus, and (2) the stimulus activation of individual motion detectors always might be influenced by recurrent, cooperative interactions resulting from the detectors' being embedded within interconnected ensembles.Previous studies have indicated that the formation of coherent patterns for multielement motion displays depends on global cooperative interactions among ensembles of spatially distributed motion detectors that enhance certain motion directions and suppress others. Chang and Julesz (1983) and Williams and Sekuler (1984) have shown that all the dots in a random cinematogram appear to move coherently when a limited number ofmotion directions are stimulated consistently by a relatively small percentage of the moving elements, and Petersik (1990) has demonstrated that motion perceived in one part of a random cinematogram can increase the likelihood of motion being perceived in a neighboring part of the cinematogram. Nawrot and Sekuler (1990) and Hock and Balz (1994) have provided evidence that, depending on the distance, global spatial interactions can either facilitate or inhibit the perception of motion in a particular direction.In this article, we report the results of experiments involving the perception of single-element apparent motion over small spatial displacements. When motion is not perceived, two stationary elements are perceived instead (the perception of nonmotion was sometimes, but not always, accompanied by the perception of flicker). The key finding is that the motion perceived for singleelement apparent motion is like the perception of globalWe are grateful to Gregor Schaner, Kathleen Eastman, Martin Giese, and three anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of an earlier version of the manuscript and their valuable suggestions. Correspondence and requests for materials should be sent to H. Hock, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431 (e-mail: ...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 63%

Dynamic, state-dependent thresholds for the perception of single-element apparent motion: Bistability from local cooperativity

Hock

Kogan

Espinoza

1997

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…This is because the key to the occurrence of multistability (i.e., the possibility of more than one set of stable motion correspondences) is the presence of nonlinear inhibitory interactions among competing, directionally selective motion detectors, and the nature of these interactions is readily expressed in terms of differences in activation level Williams, Phillips, & Sekuler, 1986). For example, the inhibitory effect of horizontal on vertical motion detectors for the motion quartet (when horizontal motion is perceived and vertical motion suppressed) depends on the level of activation of the detectors that respond selectively to horizontal motion; that is, there is more activation-reducing inhibition of vertical detectors when there is more activation of horizontal detectors.…”

Section: Differential Activation and Dynamical Stabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Early psychophysical evidence has come from direction-specificadaptation raising thresholds for the detection of moving gratings (Pantle & Sekuler, 1969;Tolhurst, 1973), differences in detection thresholds between drifting and counterphase gratings (Levinson & Sekuler, 1975a), and activation-decreasing inhibitory interactions among detectors with opposing directional selectivity (Levinson & Sekuler, 1975b;Marshak & Sekuler, 1979). Williams, Phillips, and Sekuler (1986) have shown that a dynamical model involving activation-increasing excitatory interactions and activation-decreasing inhibitory interactions among directionally selective motion detectors can account for hysteresis effects in the perception of motion for random cinematograms, and differences in the activation of motion detectors with different directional selectivity have been proposed as the basis for the relative contributions of two moving gratings to the perception of a coherently moving plaid pattern (Adelson & Movshon, 1982). Significantly for the present study, Burt and Sperling (1981) have argued for differences in motion detector activation (i.e., motion strength) as the basis for solutions to the motion correspondence problem, and a connectionist model developed by Dawson (1991) has demonstrated the computational viability of pathlength dependent differences in detector activation as the basis for solving the motion correspondence problem (greater activation for motions over shorter path lengths was implemented by greater excitatory self-feedback).…”

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confidence: 99%

Differential activation solution to the

Gilroy

Hock

Ploeger

2001

Perception & Psychophysics

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The correspondence problem in motion perception is concerned with how the visual system establishes pairwise correspondences between the elements belonging to one set of simultaneously presented, discrete elements and those belonging to a subsequent, second set of simultaneously presented elements. The "problem" arises when there is the possibility of different combinations of correspondence matches, and therefore, competing motion paths for each element (Attneave, 1974;Kolers, 1972). The "solution" entails establishing which of the alternative motion paths is perceived. In this study we examined "minimal mapping theory" (Ullman, 1979) as the basis for solving the motion correspondence problem and propose an alternative that depends on the differential activation of directionally selective motion detectors that respond selectively to the competing motions.According to minimal mapping theory, whether or not a match is established between an element ("correspondence token") presented during one time interval and an element ("correspondence token") presented during the following time interval depends on stimulus attributes that affect the affinity of the pair of elements. Some attributes, like interelement distance and element similarity, directly affect affinity. Elements that are near each other have stronger affinity than elements that are further apart, leading to the "nearest neighbor" solution to the motion correspondence problem (e.g., Burt & Sperling, 1981;Hock, Kelso, & Schöner, 1993;Shechter, Hochstein, & Hillman, 1988;Ullman, 1979). Other stimulus attributes neither increase nor decrease affinity. Instead, they "equate" the effects of affinity on correspondence strength that arise from other attributes; for example, long interframe intervals between the presentation of the elements reduce differences in correspondence strength due to differences in the distance between the elements.The minimal mapping solution to the correspondence problem, the determination of the motion path perceived when more than one path is possible, then depends on local competition (interaction) modifying the correspondence strengths established by stimulus-determined element affinities. Both split competition (when an element presented during one time interval has possible matches with two or more elements presented during the next time interval) and fusion competition (when two or more elements presented during one time interval have the same element as a possible match during the next time interval) affect the ultimate strength of element correspondences. However, the effectiveness of local inhibitory competition depends on there being differences in affinity for the pairs of elements defining the alterna- 847Copyright 2001 Psychonomic Society, Inc.We thank Gregor Schöner, Cynthia Park, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Correspondence should be addressed to H. Hock, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431 (e-mail: hockhs@fau.edu). The correspondence problem arises in...

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“…This precaution may not be sufficient though. Recruitment phenomena (McKee & Welch, 1985;van Doorn & Koenderink, 1984;Williams, Phillips & Sekuler, 1986) suggest that local motion detectors with the same motion preference in adjacent regions of the visual field interact cooperatively.…”

Section: The Effect Of Perturbations Of the Local Motion Vectors On Hmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans combine the optic flow with static depth cues for robust perception of heading

Berg

Brenner

1994

Vision Research

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The retinal flow during normal locomotion contains components due to rotation and translation of the observer. The translatory part of the flow-pattern is informative of heading, because it radiates outward from the direction of heading. However, it is not directly accessible from the retinal flow. Nevertheless, humans can perceive their direction of heading from the compound retinal flow without need for extra-retinal signals that indicate the rotation. Two classes of models have been proposed to explain the visual decomposition of the retinal flow into its constituent parts. One type relies on local operations to remove the rotational part of the flow field. The other type explicitly determines the direction and magnitude of the rotation from the global retinal flow, for subsequent removal. According to the former model, nearby points are most reliable for estimating one's heading. In the latter type of model the quality of the heading estimate depends on the accuracy with which the ego-rotation is determined and is therefore most reliable when based on the most distant points. We report that subjects underestimate the eccentricity of heading, relative to the fixated point in the ground plane, when the visible range of the ground plane is reduced. Moreover we find that in perception of heading, humans can tolerate more noise than the optimal observer (in the least squares sense) would do if only using optic flow. The latter finding argues against both schemes because ultimately both classes of model are limited in their noise tolerance to that of the optimal observer, which uses all information available in the optic flow. Apparently humans use more information than is present in the optic flow. Both aspects of human performance are consistent with the use of static depth information in addition to the optic flow to select the most distant points. Processing of the flow of these selected points provides the most reliable estimate of the ego-rotation. Subsequent estimates of the heading direction, obtained from the translatory component of the flow, are robust with respect to noise. In such a scheme heading estimates are subject to systematic errors, similar to those reported, if the most distant points are not much further away than the fixation point, because the ego-rotation is underestimated.

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Hysteresis in the perception of motion direction as evidence for neural cooperativity

Cited by 150 publications

References 9 publications

Dynamic, state-dependent thresholds for the perception of single-element apparent motion: Bistability from local cooperativity

Dynamic, state-dependent thresholds for the perception of single-element apparent motion: Bistability from local cooperativity

Differential activation solution to the

Humans combine the optic flow with static depth cues for robust perception of heading

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