Going with the Flow: The Neural Mechanisms Underlying Illusions of Complex-Flow Motion

Studying the mismatch between perception and reality helps us better understand the constructive nature of the visual brain. The Pinna–Brelstaff motion illusion is a compelling example illustrating how a complex moving pattern can generate an illusory motion perception. When an observer moves toward (expansion) or away (contraction) from the Pinna–Brelstaff figure, the figure appears to rotate. The neural mechanisms underlying the illusory complex-flow motion of rotation, expansion, and contraction remain unknown. We studied this question at both perceptual and neuronal levels in behaving male macaques by using carefully parametrized Pinna–Brelstaff figures that induce the above motion illusions. We first demonstrate that macaques perceive illusory motion in a manner similar to that of human observers. Neurophysiological recordings were subsequently performed in the middle temporal area (MT) and the dorsal portion of the medial superior temporal area (MSTd). We find that subgroups of MSTd neurons encoding a particular global pattern of real complex-flow motion (rotation, expansion, contraction) also represent illusory motion patterns of the same class. They require an extra 15 ms to reliably discriminate the illusion. In contrast, MT neurons encode both real and illusory local motions with similar temporal delays. These findings reveal that illusory complex-flow motion is first represented in MSTd by the same neurons that normally encode real complex-flow motion. However, the extraction of global illusory motion in MSTd from other classes of real complex-flow motion requires extra processing time. Our study illustrates a cascaded integration mechanism from MT to MSTd underlying the transformation from external physical to internal nonveridical flow-motion perception. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The neural basis of the transformation from objective reality to illusory percepts of rotation, expansion, and contraction remains unknown. We demonstrate psychophysically that macaques perceive these illusory complex-flow motions in a manner similar to that of human observers. At the neural level, we show that medial superior temporal (MSTd) neurons represent illusory flow motions as if they were real by globally integrating middle temporal area (MT) local motion signals. Furthermore, while MT neurons reliably encode real and illusory local motions with similar temporal delays, MSTd neurons take a significantly longer time to process the signals associated with illusory percepts. Our work extends previous complex-flow motion studies by providing the first detailed analysis of the neuron-specific mechanisms underlying complex forms of illusory motion integration from MT to MSTd.