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Chapter 10: Perception and Action

This document discusses several concepts related to perception and action: 1) Optic flow refers to the visual patterns created when an observer moves through the environment and can provide information about navigation. 2) Areas of the brain like MST and the hippocampus are involved in processing optic flow and navigation. 3) Mirror neurons in the premotor cortex respond both when performing and observing actions, suggesting a role in understanding and imitating others.

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Roberto García Aguilar
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23 views

Chapter 10: Perception and Action

This document discusses several concepts related to perception and action: 1) Optic flow refers to the visual patterns created when an observer moves through the environment and can provide information about navigation. 2) Areas of the brain like MST and the hippocampus are involved in processing optic flow and navigation. 3) Mirror neurons in the premotor cortex respond both when performing and observing actions, suggesting a role in understanding and imitating others.

Uploaded by

Roberto García Aguilar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 10: Perception and Action

Until now, we’ve thought of vision as the process of using retinal information to
determine the properties of things out there in the world.

This is different than touch, where we actively explore the world.

However, various aspects of vision require action. Like touch, we can learn a lot
about the environment when we move around in it and see how the percept of the
world changes.
Examples of ‘active vision’ that we’ve seen so far are:

1) Eye-movements, where we choose to saccade to locations in a scene to


obtain more information about that location.

2) Motion parallax, where we can move our position to better judge


distances.
The Ecological Approach to Perception
"It's not what is inside the head that is important, it's what the head is inside of"

• Approach developed by J. J. Gibson (began in late 1950s)


– Gibson felt that traditional laboratory research on perception was
• Too artificial - observers were not allowed to move their heads
• Unable to provide an explanation for how pilots used
environmental information to land airplanes

• Types of information used by perceivers as they move through an


environment
– Optic flow - appearance of objects as the observer moves past
them
• Gradient of flow - difference in flow as a function of distance
from the observer
• Focus of expansion - point in distance where there is no flow
Optic Flow
– Self-produced information - flow is created by the movement of the observer
Optic Flow
Moving straight toward fixation on horizon
Optic flow is a good cue to determine where we are in the environment.

It differs from other cues because it is determined by our own actions.


Do People use Flow Information?
• Experiment by Land and Lee
– Car fitted with instruments to measure
• Angle of steering wheel
• Speed of vehicle
• Direction of gaze of driver
Experiment by Land and Lee

When driving straight, driver looks straight ahead but not at focus of expansion

When driving around a curve, driver looks at tangent point at side of the
road.
Results suggest that drivers use other information in addition to optic flow
to determine their heading.
Optic Flow
Slight horizontal translation while moving forward
Optic Flow
Strong horizontal translation while moving forward
Optic Flow
Oscillating horizontal translation while moving forward
Optic flow (or even vision) is not necessary for navigation.

Blindfolded walking experiments show that people can navigate


without any visual stimulation from the environment (Loomis et al.,
1997).
Flow, Posture, and Balance
• Experiment by Lee and Aronson
– 13- to 16-month-old children placed in “swinging room”
• In the room, the floor was stationary but the walls and ceiling
swung backward and forward
• The movement creates optic flow patterns
– Children swayed back and forth in response the flow patterns
created in the room

– Adults show the same response as children when placed in the


swinging room
• Results show that vision has a powerful effect on balance and even
overrides other senses that provide feedback about body placement
and posture
The Physiology of Navigation
• Optic flow neurons - neurons in the medial superior temporal area
(MST) of monkeys respond to flow patterns
Optic flow stimuli

Expansion Contraction Rotation


• Optic flow neurons - neurons in the medial superior temporal area
(MST) of monkeys respond to flow patterns
MST neuron sensitive to expansion rotation
Associating area MST with Perception
• Experiment by Britten and van Wezel
– Monkeys were trained to respond to the flow of dots on a computer
screen
• They indicated whether the dots flowed to the right, left, or
straight ahead
– As the monkeys did the task, microstimulation was used to
stimulate MST neurons that respond to specify directions of flow
patterns
– Judgments were shifted in the direction of the stimulated neuron
The hippocampus is involved in navigation

• Experiment by Maguire et al.


– Observers learned the layout of a
“virtual town”
– In a PET scanner, they were told to
navigate to locations in the town
– Navigating activated the right
hippocampus and part of the parietal
cortex
• Activation was greater when the
navigation between points was
accurate than when it was
inaccurate
Experiment by Janzen and van Turennout
• Observers studied a film that moved through a “virtual museum”
• Exhibits appeared at decision points where turns were necessary and
non-decision points.
• Observers were given a recognition task while in an MRI scanner
– They were presented objects they had seen as exhibits and ones
they had not seen
Results showed the greatest activation for objects at decision points (landmarks)
in the parahippocampal gyrus, especially when these points were correctly
remembered.
The parahippocampus shows greater responses to ‘places’ than other things.

Kanwisher and colleagues (who named the FFA) call this the ‘parahippocampal
place area, or PPA.
MRIs of London taxi drivers have shown that they have more gray matter in
their hippocampus than control subjects!
Responses of Neurons in the Parietal Lobe
• Visual-dominant neuron - responds best when a monkey looks at a
button or pushes it in the light
• Motor-dominant neuron - responds best when pushing button both in
light and dark
– Does not respond to looking at a button
Parietal Reach Region

• Neurons in the posterior parietal cortex show


– Response before monkeys grasp an object
• These neurons signal the intention to grasp
• Neurons from this region send signals to the premotor area
– These neurons respond to carrying out actions and to observing
others carrying out the same actions

Monkey reaches
at this time
-200 -100
Time (ms)
Mirror Neurons in Premotor Cortex
• Neurons in the premotor cortex of monkeys that
– Respond when a monkey grasps an object and when an experimenter
grasps an object
– Response to the observed action “mirrors” the response of actually grasping
– There is a diminished response if an object is grasped by a tool (such as
pliers)
Mirror Neurons in Premotor Cortex - continued
• Possible functions of mirror neurons
– To help understand another animal’s actions and react to them
appropriately
– To help imitate the observed action
• Mirror neurons may help link sensory perceptions and motor actions

May be associated with empathy? Autism??

“I predict that mirror neurons will do for


psychology what DNA did for biology:
they will provide a unifying framework
and help explain a host of mental
abilities that have hitherto remained
mysterious and inaccessible to
experiments.” – V.S. Ramachandran

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