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Parietal activity and the perceived direction of ambiguous apparent motion

Nature Neuroscience volume 6, pages 616–623 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

We recorded from parietal neurons in monkeys (Macacca mulatta) trained to report the direction of an apparent motion stimulus consisting of regularly spaced columns of dots surrounded by an aperture. Displacing the dots by half their inter-column spacing produced vivid apparent motion that could be perceived in either the preferred or anti-preferred direction for each neuron. Many neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) responded more strongly on trials in which the animals reported perceiving the neurons' preferred direction, independent of the hand movement used to report their percept. This selectivity was less common in the medial superior temporal area (MST) and virtually absent in the middle temporal area (MT). Variations in activity of LIP and MST neurons just before motion onset were also predictive of the animals' subsequent perceived direction. These data suggest a hierarchy of representation in parietal cortex, whereby neuronal responses become more aligned with subjective perception in higher parietal areas.

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Figure 1: Visual stimulus and behavioral task.
Figure 2: Neuronal responses.
Figure 3: Responses of one LIP cell to the ambiguous (1/2 displacement) condition, separated by whether the animal reported perceiving the preferred direction or the null direction.
Figure 4: Choice probability (CP) analysis for pre-movement and movement intervals.
Figure 5: Responses of LIP neurons were modulated by perceived direction and not by report of match (lever movement left) or non-match (lever movement right).
Figure 6: Control for planned saccades.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Born and C. Pack for comments on the manuscript, D. Bradley for general advice on experimental design and A. Parker for advice on eye-movement analysis. Supported by National Eye Institute EY12106 and the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, 220 Longwood Ave., Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Ziv M Williams, John C Elfar, Emad N Eskandar, Louis J Toth & John A Assad

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 02114, Massachusetts, USA

    Ziv M Williams & Emad N Eskandar

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Correspondence to John A Assad.

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Williams, Z., Elfar, J., Eskandar, E. et al. Parietal activity and the perceived direction of ambiguous apparent motion. Nat Neurosci 6, 616–623 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1055

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