Moving to see: the benefits of self---motion for visual perception

Moving to see: the benefits of self-motion for visual perception

A long-standing question is how the brain transforms the light patterns impinging onto the retina into a meaningful world of objects and animates with which the observer can interact. While enormous progress has been made in the understanding of brain functions during the last few decades, the fundamental principles underlying the processing and extraction of visual information remain elusive. This project builds on the observation that perception has been traditionally studied in a passive manner, paying relatively little attention to the observer's motor activity during the acquisition of visual information. Yet, like other species, humans are not passively exposed to the incoming flow of sensory data. Instead, they actively seek useful information by coordinating sensory processing with motor activity. Our motivating hypothesis is that self-movement is a critical component of visual perception. Considered as a problem of simple visual geometry this hypothesis might appear counter-intuitive. Considered as an image-processing problem it might appear counter-intuitive. Considered against decades of work concerned with how the brain "compensates" for self-movement it might also appear counter-intuitive. However, this hypothesis is fully plausible from a biological perspective, because more information about the scene is available when the observer moves. This was pointed out many years ago by ecological psychologists and has more recently been recognised in computer vision - where it has caused a paradigm change. We argue that the visual, motor, and proprioceptive information generated by self-movement is fundamental to visual processing

The project brings together three laboratories from The Netherlands (Dr. Brenner at VU University in Amsterdam), the US (Dr. Rucci at Boston University), and the UK (Dr Rushton at Cardiff University), which have developed critical expertise on the analyses of different types of motor activities in humans. We will systematically investigate the mechanisms by which human observers use motor, proprioceptive and global optic flow signals to accomplish visual tasks. Elucidating the perceptual impact of motor activity is critical to advancing our knowledge of how the visual system functions. Such knowledge can also potentially guide the design of objects and environments, inform the building of machines capable of replicating human visual functions, and it may provide a scientific basis for the development of treatments of visual impairments commonly associated with abnormal motor activity in pathological conditions.

Perceptual research has an exceedingly broad impact. It underpins the design of the computer this document is being written on (and potentially read on); both the interface and the physical screen. If you were to set this document aside and take a walk outside you would see evidence of the use of perceptual research all around. If you were stood in a street then the influence of perceptual research could be seen in the design of the street markings and traffic lights. If you walked into the nearest shop the capture of your attention would probably be driven in part by research that can be traced back to perceptual psychology and if you admire the colour of an object in the shop, the reason that the colour you perceive corresponds to the colour the designer intended is due to the used of perceptual colour models.

Worldwide scientific advancement: The UK, Netherlands and the US are the primary contributors to research on understanding of perceptual processes. This project brings together researchers from the three countries to attempt to raise understanding of perceptual processes to a new level. We will examine the interaction of vision and movement. Is movement a source of noise, or is it a source of information?

Specific beneficiaries: A number of potential beneficiaries can be identified. There are a number of specific problems associated with perception during movement. These include visual vertigo, oscillopsia and nystagmus. Links to movement perception have also been suggested in autism, dyslexia and developmental coordination disorder. A serious problem experienced during self-movement by the elderly is falls. The basic research conducted here might inform clinical diagnosis and intervention. Sports almost by definition involve movement. An understanding of how vision and movement interact may inform training of individuals. Virtual and remote environments (from computer games to remotely operated robots or vehicles) are becoming increasing common. All require a user to move comfortably, naturally and accurately through an environment. An understanding of the interaction between movement and vision in natural environments could provide constraints and guidelines for the design of such systems.

Training Highly Skilled Researchers: We will train post-doctoral fellows who will have substantial input into the organization and design of the project. These postdoctoral fellows should gain the skills necessary to run their own laboratories and translate the techniques and findings into applied settings.

Inter/Multidisciplinarity: The grant sits at the interface between psychology, computer vision and movement science. It provides an opportunity to bring techniques and researchers together across these disciplines and provide training in the range of disciplines to the post-doctoral fellows.

Innovative methodologies: The project brings together a range of technologies and approaches to allow the interaction of vision and movement to be assessed using a number of innovative and novel techniques.

Each of the three laboratories has existing clinical and industrial contacts and. In particular the UK PI, Rushton is currently collaborating with clinicians in the UK on visual vertigo and has an ongoing transatlantic collaboration investigating motion deficits following brain injury. This work will be informed by this project.