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Published September 13, 1996 | public
Journal Article

Mechanisms of Heading Perception in Primate Visual Cortex

Abstract

When we move forward while walking or driving, what we see appears to expand. The center or focus of this expansion tells us our direction of self-motion, or heading, as long as our eyes are still. However, if our eyes move, as when tracking a nearby object on the ground, the retinal image is disrupted and the focus is shifted away from the heading. Neurons in primate dorso-medial superior temporal area responded selectively to an expansion focus in a certain part of the visual field, and this selective region shifted during tracking eye movements in a way that compensated for the retinal focus shift. Therefore, these neurons account for the effect of eye movements on what we see as we travel forward through the world.

Additional Information

© 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 19 April 1996; Accepted 19 July 1996. We are grateful to D. Ward and B. Gillikin for technical assistance and to W. Warren and J. Crowell for helpful comments. This work was funded by the National Eye Institute, the Sloan Foundation for Theoretical Neurobiology at Caltech, the Office of Naval Research, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 19, 2023