For the successful recognition of objective, `real' motion based on visual cues it is necessary to take self-induced motion signals into account, such as those induced by eye-movements. During a series of fMRI studies we measured responses of visual and parietal regions to motion cues derived from (a) retinal motion, (b) eyemovements (visual pursuit) and (c) objective, (real) motion. We show that the recently described cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv) is not, as implied before, primarily driven by 3D self-motion cues but favoured 2D translational coherent motion over 3D expanding flow fields. Further, we found that V3A is capable of integrating retinal motion with eye-movements, thus allowing V3A to respond to object motion independent of retinal motion. This allowed us to define a new functional localizer for area V3A. Finally, we showed that activity in the foveal representation of the early visual cortex is driven by a combination of retinal input and by error signals as hypothesized by of Rao and Ballard (1999) for predictive coding. Taken together, this work provides evidence that regions V3A and CSv are key regions concerning visual self-motion processing and that early visual regions might be modulated by feedback from higher motion processing regions.

Motion processing is an essential piece of the complex brain machinery that allows us to reconstruct the 3D layout of objects in the environment, to break camouflage, to perform scene segmentation, to estimate the ego movement, and to control our action. Although motion perception and its neural basis have been a topic of intensive research and modeling the last two decades, recent experimental evidences have stressed the dynamical aspects of motion integration and segmentation. This book presents the most recent approaches that have changed our view of biological motion processing. These new experimental evidences call for new models emphasizing the collective dynamics of large population of neurons rather than the properties of separate individual filters. Chapters will stress how the dynamics of motion processing can be used as a general approach to understand the brain dynamics itself.

Both visual area V1 and the medial temporal (MT) region of the human brain are involved in motion perception. V1 is thought to process “local motion,” such as the movement of a bird flying across a relatively small part of space, while MT is thought to process “global motion,” such as the movement of a flock of birds flying across the sky. However, recent studies using fMRI to measure human brain activity have identified signals in V1 that appear to be global motion signals, although it is unclear whether these are related to global motion processing or some other process. In two experiments, a series of stimulus manipulations were conducted to determine the extent to which these signals in V1 reflect global motion. Although initial results have so far proven inconclusive, they highlight discrepancies between previous results, suggesting that V1 motion signals may be more interesting than researchers have assumed.

The contributors to this book focus on such key aspects of motion processing as interaction and integration between locally measured motion units, structure from motion, heading in an optical flow, and second-order motion. They also discuss the interaction of motion processing with other high-level visual functions such as surface representation and attention.

Both visual area V1 and the medial temporal (MT) region of the human brain play a role in motion perception. V1 is thought to process "local motion," such as the movement of a single bird flying across a relatively small part of space, while MT is thought to process "global motion," such as the movement of an entire flock of birds flying across the sky. However, recent studies using fMRI to measure human brain activity have identified signals in V1 that appear to be global motion signals, although it is unclear whether these are related to global motion processing or stem from some other process. In two experiments, a series of stimulus manipulations were conducted to determine the extent to which these signals in V1 really reflect global motion. Although initial results have so far proven inconclusive, they highlight discrepancies between previous results, suggesting that these motion signals in V1 may be more interesting than researchers have assumed.