How stereovision interacts with optic flow perception: neural mechanisms

Optic flow, the global visual motion experienced during self-movement, supplies important navigational information. Optic flow analysis in the visual system is aided by several other visual and non-visual signals. Recent psychophysical findings demonstrate an interaction of optic flow perception and stereoscopic depth vision. Retinal disparity strongly affects an optic flow illusion, which can be related to the mechanisms of visual self-motion detection. To investigate the neuronal basis of this interaction, we tested several hypotheses by introducing different disparity contributions in a detailed neurobiological model of optic flow processing in monkey cortex. The disparity-dependent modification, which accounted best for the data suggests a specific contribution of a subset of stereoscopically modulated cortical neurons present in areas MT and MST.

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