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Serial dependencies act directly on perception, J Vis, 14 (17), 6.

Serial dependencies act directly on perception, J Vis, 14 (17), 6.

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There is good evidence that biological perceptual systems exploit the temporal continuity in the world: When asked to reproduce or rate sequentially presented stimuli (varying in almost any dimension), subjects typically err toward the previous stimulus, exhibiting so-called “serial dependence.” At this stage it is unclear whether the serial dependence results from averaging within the perceptual system, or at later stages. Here we demonstrate that strong serial dependencies occur within both perceptual and decision processes, with very little contribution from the response. Using a technique to isolate pure perceptual effects (Fritsche, Mostert, & de Lange, 2017), we show strong serial dependence in orientation judgements, over the range of orientations where theoretical considerations predict the effects to be maximal. In a second experiment we dissociate responses from stimuli to show that serial dependence occurs only between stimuli, not responses. The results show that serial dependence is important for perception, exploiting temporal redundancies to enhance perceptual efficiency.

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Spatiotopic coding during dynamic head tilt, J Neurophysiol, 2 (117), 808-817.

Spatiotopic coding during dynamic head tilt, J Neurophysiol, 2 (117), 808-817.

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Humans maintain a stable representation of the visual world effortlessly, despite constant movements of the eyes, head, and body, across multiple planes. Whereas visual stability in the face of saccadic eye movements has been intensely researched, fewer studies have investigated retinal image transformations induced by head movements, especially in the frontal plane. Unlike head rotations in the horizontal and sagittal planes, tilting the head in the frontal plane is only partially counteracted by torsional eye movements and consequently induces a distortion of the retinal image to which we seem to be completely oblivious. One possible mechanism aiding perceptual stability is an active reconstruction of a spatiotopic map of the visual world, anchored in allocentric coordinates. To explore this possibility, we measured the positional motion aftereffect (PMAE; the apparent change in position after adaptation to motion) with head tilts of approximately 42 degrees between adaptation and test (to dissociate retinal from allocentric coordinates). The aftereffect was shown to have both a retinotopic and spatiotopic component. When tested with unpatterned Gaussian blobs rather than sinusoidal grating stimuli, the retinotopic component was greatly reduced, whereas the spatiotopic component remained. The results suggest that perceptual stability may be maintained at least partially through mechanisms involving spatiotopic coding.

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Area Prostriata in the Human Brain, Curr Biol, 19 (27), 3056-3060 e3053.

Area Prostriata in the Human Brain, Curr Biol, 19 (27), 3056-3060 e3053.

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Area prostriata is a cortical area at the fundus of the calcarine sulcus, described anatomically in humans [ 1–5 ] and other primates [ 6–9 ]. It is lightly myelinated and lacks the clearly defined six-layer structure evident throughout the cerebral cortex, with a thinner layer 4 and thicker layer 2 [ 10 ], characteristic of limbic cortex [ 11 ]. In the marmoset and rhesus monkey, area prostriata has cortical connections with MT+ [ 12 ], the cingulate motor cortex [ 8 ], the auditory cortex [ 13 ], the orbitofrontal cortex, and the frontal polar cortices [ 14 ]. Here we use functional magnetic resonance together with a wide-field projection system to study its functional properties in humans. With population receptive field mapping [ 15 ], we show that area prostriata has a complete representation of the visual field, clearly distinct from the adjacent area V1. As in the marmoset, the caudal-dorsal border of human prostriata—abutting V1—represents the far peripheral visual field, with eccentricities decreasing toward its rostral boundary. Area prostriata responds strongly to very fast motion, greater than 500°/s. The functional properties of area prostriata suggest that it may serve to alert the brain quickly to fast visual events, particularly in the peripheral visual field.

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Plasticity of the human visual brain after an early cortical lesion, Neuropsychologia.

Plasticity of the human visual brain after an early cortical lesion, Neuropsychologia.

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In adults, partial damage to V1 or optic radiations abolishes perception in the corresponding part of the visual field, causing a scotoma. However, it is widely accepted that the developing cortex has superior capacities to reorganize following an early lesion to endorse adaptive plasticity. Here we report a single patient case (G.S.) with near normal central field vision despite a massive unilateral lesion to the optic radiations acquired early in life. The patient underwent surgical removal of a right hemisphere parieto-temporal-occipital atypical choroid plexus papilloma of the right lateral ventricle at four months of age, which presumably altered the visual pathways during in utero development. Both the tumor and surgery severely compromised the optic radiations. Residual vision of G.S. was tested psychophysically when the patient was 7 years old. We found a close-to-normal visual acuity and contrast sensitivity within the central 25 degrees and a great impairment in form and contrast vision in the far periphery (40-50 degrees ) of the left visual hemifield. BOLD response to full field luminance flicker was recorded from the primary visual cortex (V1) and in a region in the residual temporal-occipital region, presumably corresponding to the middle temporal complex (MT+), of the lesioned (right) hemisphere. A population receptive field analysis of the BOLD responses to contrast modulated stimuli revealed a retinotopic organization just for the MT+ region but not for the calcarine regions. Interestingly, consistent islands of ipsilateral activity were found in MT+ and in the parieto-occipital sulcus (POS) of the intact hemisphere. Probabilistic tractography revealed that optic radiations between LGN and V1 were very sparse in the lesioned hemisphere consistently with the post-surgery cerebral resection, while normal in the intact hemisphere. On the other hand, strong structural connections between MT+ and LGN were found in the lesioned hemisphere, while the equivalent tract in the spared hemisphere showed minimal structural connectivity. These results suggest that during development of the pathological brain, abnormal thalamic projections can lead to functional cortical changes, which may mediate functional recovery of vision.