The Normal and Pathological Threshold of the Perception of Angular Accelerations for the Optogyral Illusion and the Turning Sensation

Vestibular Labyrinth Contributions to Human Whole-Body Motion Discrimination

“…While other factors (e.g., motion directions, methodologies) may play a role, we think that the difference is most parsimoniously explained by noting that Gianna and colleagues did not suggest that their patients had total vestibular loss. This would also be consistent with smaller threshold elevations reported in other earlier studies (Jongkees and Groen, 1950; Mann, 1951; Roggeveen and Nijhoff, 1956; Montandon et al, 1969) that measured thresholds in patients having a wide variety of diagnoses. While the evidence of vestibular dysfunction in the various patients was unambiguous, there was no evidence that vestibular function was totally absent in these various patients.…”

“…While other studies show that patients with various peripheral vestibular disorders generally demonstrate higher than normal nystagmic (Montandon and Russbach, 1956) and perceptual (Mann, 1951; Montandon and Russbach, 1956; Roggeveen and Nijhoff, 1956) thresholds in response to passive self-motion in the dark, no previous study has conclusively demonstrated that the vestibular periphery is the predominant sensory contributor to human motion perception under these conditions. Nor has any such patient study comprehensively assayed both canal and otolith thresholds – let alone performed a comprehensive evaluation as a function of frequency.…”

Comparison of sensitivity for the perception of bodily rotation and the oculogyral illusion

“…At the same time, our Os produced substantially lower values for both indicators than were reported in the three studies cited (Table 1). The very high thresholds reported by Roggeveen and Nijhoff (1956) can be understood in terms of the short stimulus duration (0.8 sec). The low thresholds revealed by our Os are probably, in part, due to the fact that the Os were carefully selected to insure normal vestibular function.…”

“…For the past 20 years, however, this type of apparent motion has been called the oculogyral illusion or the optogyral illusion (van Dtshoeck, Spoor, & Nijhoff, 1954;Roggeveen & Nijhoff, 1956) and has been widely used as an indicator of the function of the semicircular canals (Guedry, 1965). The oculogyral illusion may be defined as an apparent motion of objects in the visual field in the direction of stimulation by angular acceleration.…”

“…There is some evidence that human Os are more sensitive to the oculogyral illusion than to the simple perception of rotation, but only three studies have been found which have compared these two thresholds on the same Os (Christian, 1939;Hallpike & Hood, 1953;Roggeveen & Nijhoff, 1956). All of these investigations suffer from serious methodological limitations, notably in the inability to produce and measure accurately the angular accelerations used.…”