Joint-encoding of motion and depth by visual cortical neurons: Neural basis of the Pulfrich effect

Citation Info

Akiyuki Anzai, Izumi Ohzawa and Ralph D. Freeman (2001)
Joint-encoding of motion and depth by visual cortical neurons: Neural basis of the Pulfrich effect
Nature Neuroscience 4:513-518.
Clicking either of the following will start a download of the document. Please note the file size.
(6 pages, 6 figures):

Acrobat file

(464 kbytes, Pulfrich.pdf)
Press this button if you wish to receive a reprint:

Abstract

Motion and stereoscopic depth are fundamental parameters of the structural analysis of visual scenes. Because they are defined by a difference in object position, either over time or across the eyes, a common neural machinery may be used for encoding these attributes. To examine this idea, we analyzed responses of binocular complex cells in the cat's striate cortex to stimuli of various intra- and interocular spatial and temporal shifts. We find that most neurons exhibit space-time oriented response profiles in both monocular and binocular domains. This indicates that these neurons encode motion and depth jointly and it explains phenomena such as the Pulfrich effect. We also find that the relationship between neuronal tuning of motion and depth conforms to that predicted by the use of motion parallax as a depth cue. These results demonstrate a joint-encoding of motion and depth at an early cortical stage.