How the Primate Brain Perfoms Detection and Pursuit of Moving Visual Objects

Abstract

The design and implementation of technical devices to pursue moving visual targets, or to direct the optical axis quickly towards a briefly presented stationary target, forms a formidable challenge to engineers. Yet the primate oculomotor system performs both tasks superbly, using different strategies and different sets of neural elements to acquire the appropriate information from the retina and to generate the required neural control signals for the oculomotor motoneurons (for review see: Robinson 1981). A framework for these two oculomotor subsystems, the pursuit system and the saccadic system, is proposed here on the basis of neurophysiological findings in alert monkeys and is arranged into a sequence of Spatio-Temporal Translation, Motor Program Generation, and Neural Integration.