scholarly journals Keep your eyes on the ball: smooth pursuit eye movements enhance prediction of visual motion

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (4) ◽  
pp. 1756-1767 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Spering ◽  
Alexander C. Schütz ◽  
Doris I. Braun ◽  
Karl R. Gegenfurtner
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Perceptual Judgment ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Motion Direction ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Retinal Stimulation

Success of motor behavior often depends on the ability to predict the path of moving objects. Here we asked whether tracking a visual object with smooth pursuit eye movements helps to predict its motion direction. We developed a paradigm, “eye soccer,” in which observers had to either track or fixate a visual target (ball) and judge whether it would have hit or missed a stationary vertical line segment (goal). Ball and goal were presented briefly for 100–500 ms and disappeared from the screen together before the perceptual judgment was prompted. In pursuit conditions, the ball moved towards the goal; in fixation conditions, the goal moved towards the stationary ball, resulting in similar retinal stimulation during pursuit and fixation. We also tested the condition in which the goal was fixated and the ball moved. Motion direction prediction was significantly better in pursuit than in fixation trials, regardless of whether ball or goal served as fixation target. In both fixation and pursuit trials, prediction performance was better when eye movements were accurate. Performance also increased with shorter ball-goal distance and longer presentation duration. A longer trajectory did not affect performance. During pursuit, an efference copy signal might provide additional motion information, leading to the advantage in motion prediction.

scholarly journals Spatial and Temporal Integration of Visual Motion Signals for Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements in Monkeys

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 2013-2025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie C. Osborne ◽  
Stephen G. Lisberger
Keyword(s):  
Random Walk ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Target Motion ◽  
Linear Filter ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Spatial Averaging ◽  
Spatial Integration ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements

To probe how the brain integrates visual motion signals to guide behavior, we analyzed the smooth pursuit eye movements evoked by target motion with a stochastic component. When each dot of a texture executed an independent random walk such that speed or direction varied across the spatial extent of the target, pursuit variance increased as a function of the variance of visual pattern motion. Noise in either target direction or speed increased the variance of both eye speed and direction, implying a common neural noise source for estimating target speed and direction. Spatial averaging was inefficient for targets with >20 dots. Together these data suggest that pursuit performance is limited by the properties of spatial averaging across a noisy population of sensory neurons rather than across the physical stimulus. When targets executed a spatially uniform random walk in time around a central direction of motion, an optimized linear filter that describes the transformation of target motion into eye motion accounted for ∼50% of the variance in pursuit. Filters had widths of ∼25 ms, much longer than the impulse response of the eye, and filter shape depended on both the range and correlation time of motion signals, suggesting that filters were products of sensory processing. By quantifying the effects of different levels of stimulus noise on pursuit, we have provided rigorous constraints for understanding sensory population decoding. We have shown how temporal and spatial integration of sensory signals converts noisy population responses into precise motor responses.

MST Neuronal Responses to Heading Direction During Pursuit Eye Movements

1999 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 596-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. Page ◽  
Charles J. Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Neuronal Population ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Neuronal Responses ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Heading Direction ◽  
Monkey Visual Cortex

MST neuronal responses to heading direction during pursuit eye movements. As you move through the environment, you see a radial pattern of visual motion with a focus of expansion (FOE) that indicates your heading direction. When self-movement is combined with smooth pursuit eye movements, the turning of the eye distorts the retinal image of the FOE but somehow you still can perceive heading. We studied neurons in the medial superior temporal area (MST) of monkey visual cortex, recording responses to FOE stimuli presented during fixation and smooth pursuit eye movements. Almost all neurons showed significant changes in their FOE selective responses during pursuit eye movements. However, the vector average of all the neuronal responses indicated the direction of the FOE during both fixation and pursuit. Furthermore, the amplitude of the net vector increased with increasing FOE eccentricity. We conclude that neuronal population encoding in MST might contribute to pursuit-tolerant heading perception.

scholarly journals Asymmetric smooth pursuit eye movements and visual motion reaction time

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (14) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiji Ono ◽  
Kenichiro Miura ◽  
Takashi Kawamura ◽  
Tomohiro Kizuka
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements

scholarly journals Different mechanisms for modulation of the initiation and steady-state of smooth pursuit eye movements

2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 1265-1276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Behling ◽  
Stephen G. Lisberger
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Target Speed ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Motor ◽  
State Tracking ◽  
Eye Velocity

Smooth pursuit eye movements are used by primates to track moving objects. They are initiated by sensory estimates of target speed represented in the middle temporal (MT) area of extrastriate visual cortex and then supported by motor feedback to maintain steady-state eye speed at target speed. Here, we show that reducing the coherence in a patch of dots for a tracking target degrades the eye speed both at the initiation of pursuit and during steady-state tracking, when eye speed reaches an asymptote well below target speed. The deficits are quantitatively different between the motor-supported steady-state of pursuit and the sensory-driven initiation of pursuit, suggesting separate mechanisms. The deficit in visually guided pursuit initiation could not explain the deficit in steady-state tracking. Pulses of target speed during steady-state tracking revealed lower sensitivities to image motion across the retina for lower values of dot coherence. However, sensitivity was not zero, implying that visual motion should still be driving eye velocity toward target velocity. When we changed dot coherence from 100% to lower values during accurate steady-state pursuit, we observed larger eye decelerations for lower coherences, as expected if motor feedback was reduced in gain. A simple pursuit model accounts for our data based on separate modulation of the strength of visual-motor transmission and motor feedback. We suggest that reduced dot coherence allows us to observe evidence for separate modulations of the gain of visual-motor transmission during pursuit initiation and of the motor corollary discharges that comprise eye velocity memory and support steady-state tracking. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We exploit low-coherence patches of dots to control the initiation and steady state of smooth pursuit eye movements and show that these two phases of movement are modulated separately by the reliability of visual motion signals. We conclude that the neural circuit for pursuit includes separate modulation of the strength of visual-motor transmission for movement initiation and of eye velocity positive feedback to support steady-state tracking.

scholarly journals Sensory versus motor loci for integration of multiple motion signals in smooth pursuit eye movements and human motion perception

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 741-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Qiong Niu ◽  
Stephen G. Lisberger
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Human Motion ◽  
Stimulus Selection ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Motor Processing ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Vector Averaging ◽  
Winner Take All

We have investigated how visual motion signals are integrated for smooth pursuit eye movements by measuring the initiation of pursuit in monkeys for pairs of moving stimuli of the same or differing luminance. The initiation of pursuit for pairs of stimuli of the same luminance could be accounted for as a vector average of the responses to the two stimuli singly. When stimuli comprised two superimposed patches of moving dot textures, the brighter stimulus suppressed the inputs from the dimmer stimulus, so that the initiation of pursuit became winner-take-all when the luminance ratio of the two stimuli was 8 or greater. The dominance of the brighter stimulus could be not attributed to either the latency difference or the ratio of the eye accelerations for the bright and dim stimuli presented singly. When stimuli comprised either spot targets or two patches of dots moving across separate locations in the visual field, the brighter stimulus had a much weaker suppressive influence; the initiation of pursuit could be accounted for by nearly equal vector averaging of the responses to the two stimuli singly. The suppressive effects of the brighter stimulus also appeared in human perceptual judgments, but again only for superimposed stimuli. We conclude that one locus of the interaction of two moving visual stimuli is shared by perception and action and resides in local inhibitory connections in the visual cortex. A second locus resides deeper in sensory-motor processing and may be more closely related to action selection than to stimulus selection.

scholarly journals Motion dependence of smooth pursuit eye movements in the marmoset

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (10) ◽  
pp. 3954-3960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude F. Mitchell ◽  
Nicholas J. Priebe ◽  
Cory T. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Genetic Model ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Target Velocity ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Slow Moving ◽  
Eye Velocity

Smooth pursuit eye movements stabilize slow-moving objects on the retina by matching eye velocity with target velocity. Two critical components are required to generate smooth pursuit: first, because it is a voluntary eye movement, the subject must select a target to pursue to engage the tracking system; and second, generating smooth pursuit requires a moving stimulus. We examined whether this behavior also exists in the common marmoset, a New World primate that is increasingly attracting attention as a genetic model for mental disease and systems neuroscience. We measured smooth pursuit in two marmosets, previously trained to perform fixation tasks, using the standard Rashbass step-ramp pursuit paradigm. We first measured the aspects of visual motion that drive pursuit eye movements. Smooth eye movements were in the same direction as target motion, indicating that pursuit was driven by target movement rather than by displacement. Both the open-loop acceleration and closed-loop eye velocity exhibited a linear relationship with target velocity for slow-moving targets, but this relationship declined for higher speeds. We next examined whether marmoset pursuit eye movements depend on an active engagement of the pursuit system by measuring smooth eye movements evoked by small perturbations of motion from fixation or during pursuit. Pursuit eye movements were much larger during pursuit than from fixation, indicating that pursuit is actively gated. Several practical advantages of the marmoset brain, including the accessibility of the middle temporal (MT) area and frontal eye fields at the cortical surface, merit its utilization for studying pursuit movements.

The effect of a moving distractor on the initiation of smooth-pursuit eye movements

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent P. Ferrera ◽  
Stephen G. Lisberger
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Target Selection ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Response Preparation ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Motion Processing

AbstractAs a step toward understanding the mechanism by which targets are selected for smooth-pursuit eye movements, we examined the behavior of the pursuit system when monkeys were presented with two discrete moving visual targets. Two rhesus monkeys were trained to select a small moving target identified by its color in the presence of a moving distractor of another color. Smooth-pursuit eye movements were quantified in terms of the latency of the eye movement and the initial eye acceleration profile. We have previously shown that the latency of smooth pursuit, which is normally around 100 ms, can be extended to 150 ms or shortened to 85 ms depending on whether there is a distractor moving in the opposite or same direction, respectively, relative to the direction of the target. We have now measured this effect for a 360 deg range of distractor directions, and distractor speeds of 5–45 deg/s. We have also examined the effect of varying the spatial separation and temporal asynchrony between target and distractor. The results indicate that the effect of the distractor on the latency of pursuit depends on its direction of motion, and its spatial and temporal proximity to the target, but depends very little on the speed of the distractor. Furthermore, under the conditions of these experiments, the direction of the eye movement that is emitted in response to two competing moving stimuli is not a vectorial combination of the stimulus motions, but is solely determined by the direction of the target. The results are consistent with a competitive model for smooth-pursuit target selection and suggest that the competition takes place at a stage of the pursuit pathway that is between visual-motion processing and motor-response preparation.

Smooth-pursuit eye movement deficits with chemical lesions in the dorsolateral pontine nucleus of the monkey

1988 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 952-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. May ◽  
E. L. Keller ◽  
D. A. Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Ibotenic Acid ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Optokinetic Response ◽  
Pontine Nucleus ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Dorsolateral Pontine Nucleus

1. Anatomical and single-unit recording studies suggest that the dorsolateral pontine nucleus (DLPN) in monkey is a major link in the projection of descending visual motion information to the cerebellum. Such studies coupled with cortical and cerebellar lesion results suggest a major role for this basilar pontine region in the mediation of smooth-pursuit eye movements. 2. To provide more direct evidence that this pontine region is involved in the control of smooth-pursuit eye movements, focal chemical lesions were made in DLPN in the vicinity of previously recorded visual motion and pursuit-related neurons. Eye movement responses were subsequently recorded in these lesioned animals under several behavioral paradigms. 3. A major deficit in smooth-pursuit performance was produced after unilateral DLPN lesions generated either reversibly with lidocaine or more permanently with ibotenic acid. Pursuit impairments were observed during steady-state tracking of sinusoidal target motion as well as during the initiation of pursuit tracking to sudden ramp target motion. Through the use of the latter technique, initial eye acceleration was reduced to less than one-half of normal for animals with large lesions of the dorsolateral and lateral pontine nuclei. 4. The pursuit deficit in all animals was directional in nature and was not dependent on the visual hemifield in which the motion stimulus occurred. The largest effect for horizontal tracking occurred in all animals for pursuit directed ipsilateral to the lesion. Animals also showed major deficits in one or both directions of vertical pursuit, although the primary direction of the vertical impairment was variable from animal to animal. 5. Chemical lesions in the DLPN also produced comparable deficits in the initiation of optokinetic-induced smooth eye movements in the ipsilateral direction. In contrast to this effect on the initial optokinetic response, in the one lesioned animal studied during prolonged constant velocity optokinetic drum rotation, smooth eye speed increased slowly over a 10- to 15-s period to reach a level that closely matched drum speed. These results suggest that pathways outside the DLPN can generate the steady-state optokinetic response. 6. Saccades to stationary targets were normal after DLPN lesions, but corrective saccades made to targets moving in the direction ipsilateral to the lesion were much more hypometric than similar prelesion control saccades. 7. The pursuit deficits produced by lidocaine injections recovered within 30 min. The ibotenic acid deficits were maximal approximately 1 day after the injection and recovered rapidly thereafter over a time period of 3-7 days.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Initial tracking conditions modulate the gain of visuo-motor transmission for smooth pursuit eye movements in monkeys

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Schwartz ◽  
Stephen G. Lisberger
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Target Motion ◽  
Moving Target ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Stationary Target ◽  
Motor Processing ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements

AbstractSmooth pursuit eye movements allow primates to keep gaze pointed at small objects moving across stationary surroundings. In monkeys trained to track a small moving target, we have injected brief perturbations of target motion under different initial conditions as probes to read out the state of the visuo-motor pathways that guide pursuit. A large eye movement response was evoked if the perturbation was applied to a moving target the monkey was tracking. A small response was evoked if the same perturbation was applied to a stationary target the monkey was fixating. The gain of the response to the perturbation increased as a function of the initial speed of target motion and as a function of the interval from the onset of target motion to the time of the perturbation. The response to the perturbation also was direction selective. Gain was largest if the perturbation was along the axis of ongoing target motion and smallest if the perturbation was orthogonal to the axis of target motion. We suggest that two parallel sets of visual motion pathways through the extrastriate visual cortex may mediate, respectively, the visuo-motor processing for pursuit and the modulation of the gain of transmission through those pathways.

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