Motion in the real world

Abstract

Motion Vision: Computational, Neural and Ecological ConstraintsEdited by J.M. Zanker and J. Zeil, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2001. DM 169.00 (397 pages)ISBN 3 540 65166 7How is information about the environment recovered from visual input? This problem can be approached from several directions. One strategy is to identify and study the neural substrates of vision: ‘what's in the head’. Such studies typically use simple stimuli to characterize the response properties of cells along the visual pathways. This neural approach assumes that an understanding of the responses of the visual system to simple stimuli will generalize to more complex visual environments. A complementary strategy is to analyze the characteristics of the visual environments themselves: ‘what the head is in’. This ecological approach emphasizes that visual systems have evolved in specific contexts under selective pressure to enable certain behavioural tasks. How these sources of knowledge can be combined is a major theme of this book, leading the editors to write of ‘a paradigm shift from laboratory-based investigations of visual systems to their analysis in the real world’. The value of such a shift is illustrated most clearly in a lively debate on the neural coding of motion in the fly visual system. When the information contained in trains of spikes at various time scales is considered in terms of the relevance of those time scales to the behaviour of the fly, the question of how to interpret the ‘neural code’ becomes inextricably linked to visual ecology.The section on neural coding is one of six. The organization of the book into a series of keynote papers, each followed by two or three companion articles, gives insight into a range of current debates in visual motion detection, showcasing its position as ‘one of the most active areas in systems neuroscience today’ 1xModels of motion detection. Borst, A. Nat. Neurosci. 2000; 3: 1168Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (13)See all