THE NEURAL BASIS AND FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PERIPHERAL VISION: Final Technical Report

This project studied the processing of visual information, especially in the periphery of the visual field, employing several techniques (single-unit recording and optical recording from the cortex in anesthetized and inanesthetized animals; psychophysics, dense array recording of event-related potentials and functional neuroimaging PET and fMRI) in human volunteers and patients with brain damage). Peripheral vision is important not only because it selects and directs fixation towards interesting visual targets for detailed processing by foveal visual mechanisms, but also because it plays a vital role in visuomotor coordination, posture and locomotion through space. These studies provided information about the role of the peripheral field in visual perception, especially the detection of optic flow, and the neural limitations on the detection and analysis of motion, in such skills as flying.