Spatial suppression promotes rapid figure-ground segmentation of moving objects

Duje Tadin (), Woon Ju Park, Kevin C. Dieter, Michael D. Melnick, Joseph S. Lappin and Randolph Blake
Additional contact information
Duje Tadin: University of Rochester
Woon Ju Park: University of Rochester
Kevin C. Dieter: University of Rochester
Michael D. Melnick: University of Rochester
Joseph S. Lappin: Vanderbilt University
Randolph Blake: Vanderbilt University

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Segregation of objects from their backgrounds is a fundamental visual function and one that is particularly effective when objects are in motion. Theoretically, suppressive center-surround mechanisms are well suited for accomplishing motion segregation. This longstanding hypothesis, however, has received limited empirical support. We report converging correlational and causal evidence that spatial suppression of background motion signals is critical for rapid segmentation of moving objects. Motion segregation ability is strongly predicted by both individual and stimulus-driven variations in spatial suppression strength. Moreover, aging-related superiority in perceiving background motion is associated with profound impairments in motion segregation. This segregation deficit is alleviated via perceptual learning, but only when motion segregation training also causes decreased sensitivity to background motion. We argue that perceptual insensitivity to large moving stimuli effectively implements background subtraction, which, in turn, enhances the visibility of moving objects and accounts for the observed link between spatial suppression and motion segregation.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10653-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-10653-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10653-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().