Directional Tuning Curves, Elementary Movement Detectors, and the Estimation of the Direction of Visual Movement

University of Groningen Directional Tuning Curves, Elementary Movement Detectors, and the Estimation of the Direction of Visual Movement

Directional tuning curves, elementary movement detectors, and the estimation of the direction of visual movement.

Both the insect brain and the vertebrate retina detect visual movement with neurons having broad, cosine-shaped directional tuning curves oriented in either of two perpendicular directions. This article shows that this arrangement can lead to isotropic estimates of the direction of movement: for any direction the estimate is unbiased (no systematic errors) and equally accurate (constant random ...

Effects of directional expectations on motion perception and pursuit eye movements.

Expectations about future motions can influence both perceptual judgements and pursuit eye movements. However, it is not known whether these two effects are due to shared processing, or to separate mechanisms with similar properties. We have addressed this question by providing subjects with prior information about the likely direction of motion in an upcoming random-dot motion display and meas...

Neural Tuning Functions Underlie Both Generalization and Interference

In sports, the role of backswing is considered critical for generating a good shot, even though it plays no direct role in hitting the ball. We recently demonstrated the scientific basis of this phenomenon by showing that immediate past movement affects the learning and recall of motor memories. This effect occurred regardless of whether the past contextual movement was performed actively, pass...

A Bayesian approach for characterizing direction tuning curves

22 Neural responses are commonly studied in terms of “tuning curves”, characterizing changes in neuronal 23 response as a function of a continuous stimulus parameter. In the motor system, neural responses to 24 movement-direction often follow a bell-shaped tuning curve, whose exact shape determines the properties of 25 neuronal movement coding. Estimating the shape of that tuning curve robustly...