Document Detail


Does adaptation of motion-direction detectors affect bias or sensitivity of direction judgments?
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  20120261     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
The question how channels tuned to different motion directions contribute to motion perception has been investigated by using motion adaptation to silence certain channels, and then measuring performance in a fine motion-discrimination task. To help constrain models of how the channels become integrated, we examined whether changes in performance stem from reduced accuracy (bias) or from reduced precision (sensitivity) in direction judgments. On a given trial, the observer first adapted to a field of dots moving coherently in a given direction (ranging +/-180 degrees from upward), then judged whether the motion of an ensuing test stimulus (ranging +/- 3 degrees) was left or right of reference. Bias and sensitivity of the psychometric fits were computed for each adapter direction. Relative to baseline performance, post-adaptation judgments showed significant changes in sensitivity that were tightly correlated with overall performance. Meanwhile, bias shifts were found to be weaker and less systematic. Both performance and sensitivity suffered the largest losses at +/- 60 degrees, with some enhancement at 180 degrees. No similar trends were found in the domain of bias. A regression model, with precision as the sole predictor, captured 97% of the variation in performance; no gains were found in adding bias to the model. Our findings on fine motion-discrimination question the idealized notion of a pure feature detector, as the main impact of adaptation in such a system would be to bias direction judgments away from the adapted direction.
Authors:
Bhavin R Sheth; Gem Ventura; Daw-An Wu
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Perception     Volume:  38     ISSN:  0301-0066     ISO Abbreviation:  Perception     Publication Date:  2009  
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-02-02     Completed Date:  2010-05-13     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0372307     Medline TA:  Perception     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  1621-7     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA. brsheth@uh.edu
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Bias (Epidemiology)
Discrimination (Psychology) / physiology*
Humans
Motion Perception / physiology*
Sensitivity and Specificity
Task Performance and Analysis

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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