Unsmearing Visual Motion: Development of Long-Range Horizontal Intrinsic Connections

Human vision systems integrate information nonlocally, across long spatial ranges. For example, a moving stimulus appears smeared when viewed briefly (30 ms), yet sharp when viewed for a longer exposure (100 ms) (Burr, 1980). This suggests that visual systems combine information along a trajectory that matches the motion of the stimulus. Our self-organizing neural network model shows how developmental exposure to moving stimuli can direct the formation of horizontal trajectory-specific motion integration pathways that unsmear representations of moving stimuli. These results account for Burr's data and can potentially also model other phenomena, such as visual inertia.