Object size determines the spatial spread of visual time

Fulcher, Corinne, McGraw, Paul V., Roach, Neil W., Whitaker, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8271-7552 and Heron, James 2016. Object size determines the spatial spread of visual time. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283 (1835) , 20161024. 10.1098/rspb.2016.1024

Preview

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (594kB) | Preview

Abstract

A key question for temporal processing research is how the nervous system extracts event duration, despite a notable lack of neural structures dedicated to duration encoding. This is in stark contrast with the orderly arrangement of neurons tasked with spatial processing. In this study, we examine the linkage between the spatial and temporal domains. We use sensory adaptation techniques to generate after-effects where perceived duration is either compressed or expanded in the opposite direction to the adapting stimulus' duration. Our results indicate that these after-effects are broadly tuned, extending over an area approximately five times the size of the stimulus. This region is directly related to the size of the adapting stimulus—the larger the adapting stimulus the greater the spatial spread of the after-effect. We construct a simple model to test predictions based on overlapping adapted versus non-adapted neuronal populations and show that our effects cannot be explained by any single, fixed-scale neural filtering. Rather, our effects are best explained by a self-scaled mechanism underpinned by duration selective neurons that also pool spatial information across earlier stages of visual processing.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Optometry and Vision Sciences
Subjects:	R Medicine > RE Ophthalmology
Publisher:	Royal Society, The
ISSN:	0962-8452
Funders:	Vision Research Trust; Wellcome Trust
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	27 August 2016
Date of Acceptance:	4 July 2016
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 01:56
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/94063

Citation Data

Cited 11 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item