Eye Movements and Visual Perception

眼球运动和视觉感知

• 批准号: 7263363
• 负责人: Bart Krekelberg
• 金额: $ 30.89万
• 依托单位: RUTGERS THE STATE UNIV OF NJ NEWARK
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-06-01 至 2012-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7263363
• 关键词: Eye; Movements; Visual; Perception

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): During rapid eye movements, we are not aware of the motion of the retinal image, nor do we perceive the world to be in a different place after every eye movement. This shows that, somehow, the brain corrects for the movement of the eyes when translating the retinal input into a visual percept. This project combines cellular approaches in monkeys, with behavioral studies, and functional imaging in humans to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual stability in the presence of eye movements. We propose and test a specific implementation of the dual mechanism theory of perceptual stability. In this theory, one mechanism uses eye-position information to transform eye-centered retinal information into stable, world-centered information. This transform is assumed to be imperfect while rapid eye movements are underway. Another mechanism -called saccadic suppression- is therefore invoked to blunt visual perception and hide imperfections in the coordinate transform during saccades. Our hypothesis is that both mechanisms are implemented in early visual cortical areas. As others have pointed out, the presence of eye-position signals in those areas in principle provides the information needed to perform the required coordinate transform. The presence of sufficient information, however, does not necessarily mean that the signal is actually used for the coordinate transform. In our first specific aim we test a strong prediction of the hypothesis, namely that errors in the eye-position signal should cause errors in perception. We will use single cell recordings to test whether, around the time of saccades, there is a mismatch between the true eye-position and the eye-position signals in early visual areas (V1, MT). Crucially, this mismatch should match the perceptual errors in localization that are known to occur around saccades. Our second aim is to measure changes in the visual response of these neurons around the time of a saccade. Our hypothesis predicts first, that these changes explain why errors in localization and detection of visual stimuli occur in the temporal vicinity of eye movements. Second, we will test whether random trial-by-trial variations in the neural response are correlated with trial-by-trial variation in the behavioral response of the animal. Together these behavioral and electrophysiological experiments would provide strong evidence for our hypothesis. The significance of this project is that it will enhance our understanding of the neural mechanisms that solve a fundamental problem in visual perception. This will help to develop treatment programs for neurological disorders of vision and rehabilitation after trauma and disease.

描述（由申请人提供）：在快速眼球运动期间，我们不会意识到视网膜图像的运动，也不会在每次眼球运动后感知到世界处于不同的位置。这表明，在将视网膜输入转化为视觉感知时，大脑会以某种方式纠正眼睛的运动。该项目将猴子的细胞方法与人类的行为研究和功能成像相结合，以研究眼球运动时感知稳定性的神经机制。我们提出并测试了感知稳定性双机制理论的具体实现。在该理论中，一种机制使用眼睛位置信息将以眼睛为中心的视网膜信息转换为稳定的、以世界为中心的信息。当快速眼球运动正在进行时，这种变换被认为是不完美的。因此，调用另一种机制（称为扫视抑制）来钝化视觉感知并隐藏扫视期间坐标变换中的缺陷。我们的假设是这两种机制都在早期视觉皮层区域中实现。正如其他人指出的那样，原则上这些区域中眼睛位置信号的存在提供了执行所需坐标变换所需的信息。然而，存在足够的信息并不一定意味着该信号实际上用于坐标变换。在我们的第一个具体目标中，我们测试了对假设的强有力的预测，即眼睛位置信号的错误应该导致感知错误。我们将使用单细胞记录来测试在眼跳期间，真实的眼睛位置与早期视觉区域（V1、MT）中的眼睛位置信号之间是否存在不匹配。至关重要的是，这种不匹配应该与已知在眼跳周围发生的定位感知错误相匹配。我们的第二个目标是测量眼跳期间这些神经元视觉反应的变化。我们的假设首先预测，这些变化解释了为什么视觉刺激的定位和检测错误发生在眼球运动的时间附近。其次，我们将测试神经反应的随机试验变化是否与动物行为反应的试验变化相关。这些行为和电生理学实验将为我们的假设提供强有力的证据。该项目的意义在于，它将增强我们对解决视觉感知基本问题的神经机制的理解。这将有助于制定针对视觉神经障碍以及创伤和疾病后康复的治疗方案。