Motion Of Gratings Research Articles

Abnormal activation patterns in MT+ during visual motion perception in major depressive disorder.

Previous studies have found that patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) exhibit impaired visual motion perception capabilities, and multi-level abnormalities in the human middle temporal complex (MT+), a key brain area for processing visual motion information. However, the brain activity pattern of MDD patients during the perception of visual motion information is currently unclear. In order to study the effect of depression on the activity and functional connectivity (FC) of MT+ during the perception of visual motion information, we conducted a study combining task-state fMRI and psychophysical paradigm to compare MDD patients and healthy control (HC). Duration threshold was examined through a visual motion perception psychophysical experiment. In addition, a classic block-design grating motion task was utilized for fMRI scanning of 24 MDD patients and 25 HC. The grating moved randomly in one of eight directions. We examined the neural activation under visual stimulation conditions compared to the baseline and FC. Compared to HC group, MDD patients exhibited increased duration threshold. During the task, MDD patients showed decreased beta value and percent signal change in left and right MT+. In the sample comprising MDD and HC, there was a significant negative correlation between beta value in right MT+ and duration threshold. And in MDD group, activation in MT+ were significantly correlated with retardation score. Notably, no such differences in activation were observed in primary visual cortex (V1). Furthermore, when left MT+ served as the seed region, compared to the HC, MDD group showed increased FC with right calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex and decreased FC with left precuneus. Overall, the findings of this study highlight that the visual motion perception function impairment in MDD patients relates to abnormal activation patterns in MT+, and task-related activity are significantly connected to the retardation symptoms of the disease. This not only provides insights into the potential neurobiological mechanisms behind visual motion perception disorder in MDD patients from the aspect of task-related brain activity, but also supports the importance of MT+ as a candidate biomarker region for MDD.

Weighted power summation and contrast normalization mechanisms account for short-latency eye movements to motion and disparity of sine-wave gratings and broadband visual stimuli in humans.

In this paper, we show that the model we proposed earlier to account for the disparity vergence eye movements (disparity vergence responses, or DVRs) in response to horizontal and vertical disparity steps of white noise visual stimuli also provides an excellent description of the short-latency ocular following responses (OFRs) to broadband stimuli in the visual motion domain. In addition, we reanalyzed the data and applied the model to several earlier studies that used sine-wave gratings (single or a combination of two or three gratings) and white noise stimuli. The model provides a very good account of all of these data. The model postulates that the short-latency eye movements-OFRs and DVRs-can be accounted for by the operation of two factors: an excitatory drive, determined by a weighted sum of contributions of stimulus Fourier components, scaled by a global contrast normalization mechanism. The output of the operation of these two factors is then nonlinearly scaled by the total contrast of the stimulus. Despite different roles of disparity (horizontal and vertical) and motion signals in visual scene analyses, the earliest processing stages of these different signals appear to be very similar.

Asymmetric sound scattering by gratings of monopolar and dipolar resonators in a viscoelastic materiala).

A self-consistent analytical model of a locally resonant coating exhibiting strong asymmetric wave scattering is presented. Gratings of resonant inclusions composed of cavities and hard particles embedded in a soft matrix are translated to the problem of sound scattering by monopolar and dipolar type resonators in a one-dimensional waveguide. Equations of motion for gratings of cavities and hard particles are developed that incorporate added mass, damping, and restoration forces to take into account multiple scattering effects. Expressions for the impedances of the resonators are derived from which the particle velocity fields are obtained. Monopole and dipole strengths are also calculated in terms of polarizability tensor components, which in turn are obtained from a retrieval method. Sound scattering by monopolar and dipolar resonators of different size and distribution within the waveguide are examined. Using detailed understanding of the interaction between groups of resonators, optimized solutions for a new class of acoustic materials can be designed by selecting layers of resonators to produce a given response.

Contributed Session II: Two-dimensional shape perception is based on a salience map

A salience map is a dynamic topographical map that combines information from individual feature maps into a real-number measure of conspicuity (salience). Originally, Koch and Ullman (1985) used salience to predict the priority of locations in visual search. The defining characteristic of a salience map is substance indifference--computations made on the map contents are independent of the features that produced the salience values because the features are not represented in the map. Salience maps have been proposed for computations other than search or processing priority: attention-based motion perception (Lu and Sperling, 1995), isoluminant red-green grating motion (Lu, Lesmes, Sperling centroid computation (Sun, Chubb, Wright, Sperling, 2018) and frontal-plane distance perception (Gan, Sun, Sperling, 2021). Here we demonstrate the well-known fact that simple shapes, such as letters and numbers, can be recognized not only when they are painted black or white but also when the are defined by outlines, or filled with different textures than the background, or filled with colors that are isoluminant with the background. Substance indifference means 2D shape perception is a computation performed in large part on a salience map. We further demonstrate that luminance is not necessary for accurate shape perception, that isoluminant text is easily readable, and so-called luminance artifacts are irrelevant, i.e., salience is sufficient for accurate 2D shape perception.

The relationship between the implicit visuomotor control and the motor planning accuracy.

It has been well established that an implicit motor response can be elicited by a target perturbation or a visual background motion during a reaching movement. Computational studies have suggested that the mechanism of this response is based on the error signal between the efference copy and the actual sensory feedback. If the implicit motor response is based on the efference copy, the motor command accuracy would affect the amount of the modulation of the motor response. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between the implicit motor response and the motor planning accuracy. We used a memory-guided reaching task and a manual following response (MFR) which is induced by visual grating motion. Participants performed reaching movements toward a memorized-target location with a beep cue which was presented 0 or 3 s after the target disappeared (0-s delay and 3-s delay conditions). Leftward or rightward visual grating motion was applied 400 ms after the cue. In addition, an event-related potential (ERP) was recorded during the reaching task, which reflects the motor command accuracy. Our results showed that the N170 ERP amplitude in the parietal electrodes and the MFR amplitude were significantly larger for the 3-s delay condition than the 0-s delay condition. These results suggest that the motor planning accuracy affects the amount of the implicit visuomotor response. Furthermore, there was a significant within-subjects correlation between the MFR and the N170 amplitude, which could corroborate the relationship between the implicit motor response and the motor planning accuracy.

Trochoidal X-ray Vector Radiography: Directional dark-field without grating stepping

X-ray Vector Radiography (XVR) is an imaging technique that reveals the orientations of sub-pixel sized structures within a sample. Several dark-field radiographs are acquired by rotating the sample around the beam propagation direction and stepping one of the gratings to several positions for every pose of the sample in an X-ray grating interferometry setup. In this letter, we present a method of performing XVR of a continuously moving sample without the need of any grating motion. We reconstruct the orientations within a sample by analyzing the change in the background moire fringes caused by the sample moving and simultaneously rotating in plane (trochoidal trajectory) across the detector field-of-view. Avoiding the motion of gratings provides significant advantages in terms of stability and repeatability, while the continuous motion of the sample makes this kind of system adaptable for industrial applications such as the scanning of samples on a conveyor belt. Being the first step in the direction of utilizing advanced sample trajectories to replace grating motion, this work also lays the foundations for a full three dimensional reconstruction of scattering function without grating motion.

Contribution of color signals to ocular following responses

Ocular following responses (OFRs) are elicited at ultra-short latencies (<60ms) by sudden movements of the visual scene. In this study, we investigated the roles of color signals in OFRs in monkeys. To make physiologically isoluminant sinusoidal color gratings, we estimated the physiologically isoluminant points using OFRs and found that the physiologically isoluminant points were nearly independent of the spatiotemporal frequency of the gratings. We recorded OFRs induced by the motion of physiologically isoluminant color gratings and found that OFRs elicited by the motion of color gratings had different spatiotemporal frequency tuning from those elicited by the motion of luminance gratings. Additionally, OFRs to isoluminant color gratings had smaller peak responses, suggesting that color signals weakly contribute to OFRs compared with luminance signals. OFRs to the motion of stimuli composed of luminance and color signals were also examined. We found that color signals largely contributed to OFRs under low luminance signals regardless of whether color signals moved in the same or opposite direction to luminance signals. These results provide evidence of the multichannel visual computations underlying motor responses. We conclude that, in everyday situations, color information contributes cooperatively with luminance information to the generation of ocular tracking behaviors.

Speed and the coherence of superimposed chromatic gratings

On the basis of measurements of the perceived coherence of superimposed drifting gratings, Krauskopf and Farell (1990) proposed that motion is analysed independently in different chromatic channels. They found that two gratings appeared to slip if each modulated one of the two ‘cardinal’ color mechanisms S/(L+M) and L/(L+M). If the gratings were defined along intermediate color directions, observers reported a plaid, moving coherently. We hypothesised that slippage might occur in chromatic gratings if the motion signal from the S/(L+M) channel is weak and equivalent to a lower speed. We asked observers to judge coherence in two conditions. In one, S/(L+M) and L/(L+M) gratings were physically the same speed. In the other, the two gratings had perceptually matched speeds. We found that the relative incoherence of cardinal gratings is the same whether gratings are physically or perceptually matched in speed. Thus our hypothesis was firmly contradicted. In a control condition, observers were asked to judge the coherence of stationary gratings. Interestingly, the difference in judged coherence between cardinal and intermediate gratings remained as strong as it was when the gratings moved. Our results suggest a possible alternative interpretation of Krauskopf and Farell’s result: the processes of object segregation may precede the analysis of the motion of chromatic gratings, and the same grouping signals may prompt object segregation in the stationary and moving cases.

Intrasaccadic perception triggers pupillary constriction.

It is commonly believed that vision is impaired during saccadic eye movements. However, here we report that some visual stimuli are clearly visible during saccades, and trigger a constriction of the eye’s pupil. Participants viewed sinusoid gratings that changed polarity 150 times per second (every 6.67 ms). At this rate of flicker, the gratings were perceived as homogeneous surfaces while participants fixated. However, the flickering gratings contained ambiguous motion: rightward and leftward motion for vertical gratings; upward and downward motion for horizontal gratings. When participants made a saccade perpendicular to the gratings’ orientation (e.g., a leftward saccade for a vertical grating), the eye’s peak velocity matched the gratings’ motion. As a result, the retinal image was approximately stable for a brief moment during the saccade, and this gave rise to an intrasaccadic percept: A normally invisible stimulus became visible when eye velocity was maximal. Our results confirm and extend previous studies by demonstrating intrasaccadic perception using a reflexive measure (pupillometry) that does not rely on subjective report. Our results further show that intrasaccadic perception affects all stages of visual processing, from the pupillary response to visual awareness.

Facilities Design Based on Apparent Motion of Grating for Speed Reduction in Tunnel

This paper introduces the concept of apparent motion, and by examining the characteristics of apparent motion and of velocity vectors, puts forward a new speed reduction method in tunnels. Finally, we verify this effect through a simulation experiment. The experiment first used 3DMAX to make simulation videos with apparent motion grating installed on the tunnel wall, and then took the “stable same, direction movement” proportion of perception responses as the index to determine the optimal form of apparent motion. Using the observations of six males and two females, the experiments show that, with a space layout of two bright, two dark or four bright, four dark, a stimulus separation (SS) of 2 or 4 m, and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 60, 120, 180 or 240 ms, participants tended to perceive apparent motion as “stable same, direction movement”. Based on the above, 16 combinations of grating were adopted as optimal forms. By using the Forced-Choice Method, the experiments showed that the best parameters of apparent motion grating for speed reduction are: two bright, two dark, SS as 4 m and SOA as 60 ms. Under these conditions, the average perceived speed of eight observers reaches the maximum; meanwhile, the standard deviation is lower than that of the four dark, four bright case.

Processing deficits of motion of contrast-modulated gratings in anisometropic amblyopia.

Several studies have indicated substantial processing deficits for static second-order stimuli in amblyopia. However, less is known about the perception of second-order moving gratings. To investigate this issue, we measured the contrast sensitivity for second-order (contrast-modulated) moving gratings in seven anisometropic amblyopes and ten normal controls. The measurements were performed with non-equated carriers and a series of equated carriers. For comparison, the sensitivity for first-order motion and static second-order stimuli was also measured. Most of the amblyopic eyes (AEs) showed reduced sensitivity for second-order moving gratings relative to their non-amblyopic eyes (NAEs) and the dominant eyes (CEs) of normal control subjects, even when the detectability of the noise carriers was carefully controlled, suggesting substantial processing deficits of motion of contrast-modulated gratings in anisometropic amblyopia. In contrast, the non-amblyopic eyes of the anisometropic amblyopes were relatively spared. As a group, NAEs showed statistically comparable performance to CEs. We also found that contrast sensitivity for static second-order stimuli was strongly impaired in AEs and part of the NAEs of anisometropic amblyopes, consistent with previous studies. In addition, some amblyopes showed impaired performance in perception of static second-order stimuli but not in that of second-order moving gratings. These results may suggest a dissociation between the processing of static and moving second-order gratings in anisometropic amblyopia.

Detection and resolution of drifting gratings by motion detectors in the fish retina

Fish have highly developed vision that plays an important role in detecting and recognizing objects in different forms of visually guided behavior. All of these behaviors require high spatial resolution. The theoretical limit of spatial resolution is determined by the optics of the eye and the density of photoreceptors. However, further in the fish retina, each bipolar cell may collect signals from tens of photoreceptors, and each ganglion cell may collect signals from tens to hundreds of bipolar cells. If we assume that the input signals in this physiological funnel are simply summed, then fine gratings that are still distinguishable at the level of cones should not differ from the homogeneous surface for the ganglion cells. It is therefore generally considered that the resolution of the eye is determined not by the density of cones, but by the density of ganglion cells. Given the size of the receptive field of ganglion cells, one can conclude that the resolving power at the output of the fish retina should be ten times worse than at its input. But this contradicts the results of behavioral studies, for, as it is known, fish are able to distinguish periodic gratings at the limit of resolution of the cones. Our electrophysiological studies with extracellular recording of responses of individual ganglion cells to the motion of contrast gratings of different periods showed that the acuity of ganglion cells themselves is much higher and is close to the limit determined by the density of cones. The contradiction is explained by the fact that ganglion cells are not linear integrators of the input signals, their receptive fields being composed of subunits with significantly smaller zones of signal summation where nonlinear retinal processing takes place.

Dynamics of Macaque MT Cell Responses to Grating Triplets

Neurons in area MT are sensitive to the direction of motion of gratings and of plaids made by summing 2 gratings moving in different directions. MT component direction-selective (CDS) neurons respond to the individual gratings of a plaid. Pattern direction-selective (PDS) neurons on the other hand, combine component information and respond selectively to the resulting pattern motion. Adding a third grating creates a "triplaid," which contains 3 grating and 3 plaid motions and is perceptually multistable. To examine how direction-selective mechanisms parse the motion signals in triplaids, we recorded MT responses of anesthetized and awake macaques to stimuli in which 3 identical moving gratings whose directions were separated by 120° were introduced in 3 successive epochs, going from grating to plaid to triplaid. CDS and PDS neurons-selected based on their responses to gratings and plaids-had strikingly different tuning properties in the triplaid epoch. CDS neurons were strongly tuned for the direction of motion of individual gratings, but PDS neurons nearly lost their selectivity for either the gratings or the plaids in the stimulus. We explain this reduced motion selectivity with a model that relates pattern selectivity of PDS neurons to a broad pooling of V1 afferents with a near-cosine weighting profile. Because PDS neurons signal both component and pattern motion in gratings and plaids, their reduced selectivity for motion in triplaids may be what makes these stimuli perceptually multistable.

Similar Effects of Feature-Based Attention on Motion Perception and Pursuit Eye Movements at Different Levels of Awareness

Feature-based attention enhances visual processing and improves perception, even for visual features that we are not aware of. Does feature-based attention also modulate motor behavior in response to visual information that does or does not reach awareness? Here we compare the effect of feature-based attention on motion perception and smooth-pursuit eye movements in response to moving dichoptic plaids--stimuli composed of two orthogonally drifting gratings, presented separately to each eye--in human observers. Monocular adaptation to one grating before the presentation of both gratings renders the adapted grating perceptually weaker than the unadapted grating and decreases the level of awareness. Feature-based attention was directed to either the adapted or the unadapted grating's motion direction or to both (neutral condition). We show that observers were better at detecting a speed change in the attended than the unattended motion direction, indicating that they had successfully attended to one grating. Speed change detection was also better when the change occurred in the unadapted than the adapted grating, indicating that the adapted grating was perceptually weaker. In neutral conditions, perception and pursuit in response to plaid motion were dissociated: While perception followed one grating's motion direction almost exclusively (component motion), the eyes tracked the average of both gratings (pattern motion). In attention conditions, perception and pursuit were shifted toward the attended component. These results suggest that attention affects perception and pursuit similarly even though only the former reflects awareness. The eyes can track an attended feature even if observers do not perceive it.

High diffraction order grating interferometer for pitch measurement

A grating interferometer that uses the high diffraction orders in conjunction with a Twyman-Green commercial interferometer is used for the measurement of in plane movement of gratings. The high diffraction orders ensures the amplification of the measurement precision with a factor equal to the diffraction order of the measurement in principle, because no imaging of features marking the beginning and the end of the measured length feature is necessary, and therefore the resolution limits associated with microscope imaging are eliminated.

A Novel Micro-Displacement Measuring Method Based on Optical Path Modulation

According to the interference theory of double-grating interferometers, the feature of Moiré fringe imaging in each region is investigated and a novel micro-displacement measuring method based on optical path modulation is proposed. The basic measurement principle is that the displacement is measured through Moiré fringe shifting, which is caused by the whole phased object thickness variation, in the case of non-relative movement of gratings. The object displacement measured can be changed into the phased object variation inserted in region II using a mechanical arrangement. The principle of the micro-displacement measurement is analyzed theoretically. The light intensity of the distributing image in each interference region is given no matter whether we insert the phased object or not. The effect on the Moiré fringe of the whole thickness variation of the phased object is also discussed. It is confirmed that the Moiré fringe shifts with phased object variation by calculation with MATLAB. The experimental result proves that the resolution of this method is 2.1093 μm, and the resolution of the system is 0.5273 μm after a four-subdivision circuit.

Experimental demonstration of a suspended, diffractively coupled Fabry–Perot cavity

Diffraction gratings have been considered as input couplers for Fabry–Perot cavities in future gravitational wave detectors. We experimentally demonstrate the use of a triple-suspended, diffractively coupled cavity and examine conventional Pound–Drever–Hall length sensing and control techniques to maintain the required operating condition. Utilizing the diffractively coupled Fabry–Perot cavity, we investigate the effects associated with translational grating motion and observe a unique 1/f slope in the magnitude of the frequency response when monitoring the forward-reflected error signal.

Dynamic monitoring of grating angle at the National Synchrotron Light Source

We present a dynamic monitoring method and monitoring system of grating angle, referred to as the Precise Angle Monitor (PAM), at U4B, a soft x-ray spherical grating monochromator (SGM) beam line at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). In an SGM, a photon energy scan is accomplished by rotating the grating angle precisely. After several decades of service, the monochromator at U4B developed instabilities that severely impacted the experimental program. Over several hours, either the spectral shape experienced distortions or the spectral peak shifted. In order to directly monitor the grating motion during scans, the optical head of a portable long trace profiler (PTLTP) was installed on U4B as the PAM. We find that the grating rotational motion is not ideal: (1) the scan steps are not smooth and there are high-frequency step angle errors; (2) there is also a low-frequency angle error; and (3) an unstable thermal expansion produces extra rotational error. Measurements of dynamic monitoring are presented, including grating rotation repeatability and thermal instability. The results illustrate the utility of dynamic monitoring of monochromator motion during actual operation.

Effect of Vergence on Human Ocular Following Response (OFR)

The human ocular following response (OFR) is a preattentive, short-latency visual-field-holding mechanism, which is enhanced if the moving stimulus is applied in the wake of a saccade. Since most natural gaze shifts incorporate both saccadic and vergence components, we asked whether the OFR was also enhanced during vergence. Ten subjects viewed vertically moving sine-wave gratings on a video monitor at 45 cm that had a temporal frequency of 16.7 Hz, contrast of 32%, and spatial frequency of 0.17, 0.27, or 0.44 cycle/deg. In Fixation/OFR experiments, subjects fixed on a white central dot on the video monitor, which disappeared at the beginning of each trial, just as the sinusoidal grating started moving up or down. We measured the change in eye position in the 70- to 150-ms open-loop interval following stimulus onset. Group mean downward responses were larger (0.14 degrees) and made at shorter latency (85 ms) than upward responses (0.10 degrees and 96 ms). The direction of eye drifts during control trials, when gratings remained stationary, was unrelated to the prior response. During vergence/OFR experiments, subjects switched their fixation point between the white dot at 45 cm and a red spot at 15 cm, cued by the disappearance of one target and appearance of the other. When horizontal vergence velocity exceeded 15 degrees/s, motion of sinusoidal gratings commenced and elicited the vertical OFR. Subjects showed significantly (P<0.001) larger OFR when the moving stimulus was presented during convergence (group mean increase of 46%) or divergence (group mean increase of 36%) compared with following fixation. Since gaze shifts between near and far are common during natural activities, we postulate that the increase of OFR during vergence movements reflects enhancement of early cortical motion processing, which serves to stabilize the visual field as the eyes approach their new fixation point.

Response Properties of Motion-Sensitive Visual Interneurons in the Lobula Plate of Drosophila melanogaster

The crystalline-like structure of the optic lobes of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has made them a model system for the study of neuronal cell-fate determination, axonal path finding, and target selection. For functional studies, however, the small size of the constituting visual interneurons has so far presented a formidable barrier. We have overcome this problem by establishing in vivo whole-cell recordings from genetically targeted visual interneurons of Drosophila. Here, we describe the response properties of six motion-sensitive large-field neurons in the lobula plate that form a network consisting of individually identifiable, directionally selective cells most sensitive to vertical image motion (VS cells). Individual VS cell responses to visual motion stimuli exhibit all the characteristics that are indicative of presynaptic input from elementary motion detectors of the correlation type. Different VS cells possess distinct receptive fields that are arranged sequentially along the eye's azimuth, corresponding to their characteristic cellular morphology and position within the retinotopically organized lobula plate. In addition, lateral connections between individual VS cells cause strongly overlapping receptive fields that are wider than expected from their dendritic input. Our results suggest that motion vision in different dipteran fly species is accomplished in similar circuitries and according to common algorithmic rules. The underlying neural mechanisms of population coding within the VS cell network and of elementary motion detection, respectively, can now be analyzed by the combination of electrophysiology and genetic intervention in Drosophila.