RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Faster processing of moving compared to flashed bars in awake macaque V1 provides a neural correlate of the flash lag illusion
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 031146
DO 10.1101/031146
A1 Manivannan Subramaniyan
A1 Alexander S. Ecker
A1 Saumil S. Patel
A1 Ronald J. Cotton
A1 Matthias Bethge
A1 Philipp Berens
A1 Andreas S. Tolias
YR 2015
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/11/10/031146.abstract
AB Computing object motion is vital for the survival of animals. However, while the brain is processing moving objects, these have already moved to new locations. A well-known visual illusion – the flash lag effect – suggests that the brain has acquired mechanisms to compensate for motion processing delays, so we perceive moving objects closer to their veridical locations. Although many psychophysical models have been suggested to explain this phenomenon, their predictions have not been tested at the neural level, particularly in animals that are known to perceive the illusion. To address this, we recorded neural responses to flashed and moving bars from primary visual cortex (V1) of awake, fixating monkeys. We found that the response latency for moving bars was shorter than that of flashes, in a manner that is consistent with psychophysical results from humans and monkeys. At the level of V1, our results support the differential latency model of the flash lag effect and suggest that an active position judgment – as predicted by the postdiction/motion-biasing model – may not be necessary for observing a neural correlate of the illusion. Our results provide a neural correlate of the flash lag illusion and suggest that the nervous system may have evolved mechanisms to process moving stimuli faster and closer to real time compared with briefly appearing stationary stimuli.