Takahisa Sanada Faculty of Software and Information Science, Iwate Prefectural University

Spatial distribution of visual motion in natural scene is typically non-uniform. For example, in liquid flows, various direction/speed of motion vectors are spatially distributed in a complex manner, while we can easily discriminate liquid flows from noise motion just by the spatial feature of the motion flow. Visual motion information is encoded in dorsal visual areas such as area MT. Since majority of MT neurons are robustly driven by uniform motion, in which the direction/speed are uniform across space, spatial feature of complex motion might be represented elsewhere.
We recently found that neurons in cortical area FST represent visual motion statistics which correlates to liquidness perception, but not neurons in area MT. Since these two areas are hierarchically connected, the visual motion information might be spatially integrated through dorsal visual pathway to represent spatial feature of complex motion that relate to motion defined material perception such as liquid perception.
In this study we investigate relationship between perceived liquidness and neural activity by psychophysical experiment and EEG measurements. By applying adaptation paradigm, behavioral and neuronal change in liquidness discrimination will be measured.