Looming detectors in the human visual pathway

Abstract Inspecting a target whose size oscillates about a constant mean value selectively depresses visual sensitivity to oscillating size. The effect transfers from positive to negative contrast and vice versa. This depression cannot be attributed to fatigued movement detectors. We propose that there are, in the human visual system, channels in which information as to changing size is selectively processed. This notion is consistent with the existence of two neural organizations (e.g., two classes of single neurons) selectively sensitive to increasing and to decreasing size, respectively.

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