Timing of motion representation in the human visual system

Abstract

Visual stimulus in apparent motion evokes a magnetic field from the extrastriate cortex in humans. To investigate what this magnetic field represents, we measured the latencies of the responses in three subjects to the stimuli in apparent motion at various spatial separations. These different latencies were inversely related to the spatial separations of the stimuli (range of 74 to 182 ms) and correlated with each subject's reaction time. The direction of motion affected neither the latency of the magnetic response nor the reaction times. Estimations of the origins of the evoked magnetic fields showed they were always in the same area. In two subjects, the sites were around the meeting point of the ascending limb of the inferior temporal sulcus and the lateral occipital sulcus. In the third subject, the site was in the vicinity of the angular gyrus. The difference between the magnetic response and reaction time was fairly constant (about 64 ms) among the subjects. We consider the magnetic response to be related to the generation of a motion image: First, the response clearly corresponded to human reaction times to the same stimuli: Second, the fact that the magnetic response was related to the spatial separations but independent of the direction of motion is not explained if the response is evoked simply by both the onset and offset of the object in the stimulus. Furthermore, individual reaction times were mainly delayed by the speed of the process that generated the motion image.