Abstract
Motion in the visual periphery of lizards, and other animals, often causes a shift of visual attention toward the moving object. This behavioral response must be more responsive to relevant motion (predators, prey, conspecifics) than to irrelevant motion (windblown vegetation). Early stages of visual motion detection rely on simple local circuits known as elementary motion detectors (EMDs). We presented a computer model consisting of a grid of correlation-type EMDs, with videos of natural motion patterns, including prey, predators and windblown vegetation. We systematically varied the model parameters and quantified the relative response to the different classes of motion. We carried out behavioral experiments with the lizard Anolis sagrei and determined that their visual response could be modeled with a grid of correlation-type EMDs with a spacing parameter of 0.3° visual angle, and a time constant of 0.1 s. The model with these parameters gave substantially stronger responses to relevant motion patterns than to windblown vegetation under equivalent conditions. However, the model is sensitive to local contrast and viewer-object distance. Therefore, additional neural processing is probably required for the visual system to reliably distinguish relevant from irrelevant motion under a full range of natural conditions.
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Abbreviations
- EMD:
-
Elementary motion detector
- 2DMD:
-
Two-dimensional motion detector
- SD:
-
Standard deviation
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Acknowledgments
We thank Jochen Zeil for introducing us to two-dimensional EMD modeling of natural scenes, and for helpful comments on the manuscript. Johannes Zanker provided us with a version of his 2DMD model, and suggested improvements for our implementation of the model. Michael Rudko assisted with the theory and MATLAB programming. We thank M. Leal and one anonymous reviewer for suggested improvements on an earlier draft of the manuscript. This work was supported by a grant to Union College from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The early phases of this study were supported by a visiting scientist fellowship to LJF (hosted by J. Zeil) from the Centre for Visual Sciences at The Australian National University. We followed the Recommendations for the Care of Amphibians and Reptiles (Pough 1991) in treatment of animals used in this study. Animal usage was approved by the Union College Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (protocol no. 1064). The experiments comply with the “Principles of animal care”, publication No. 86–23, revised 1985 of the National Institute of Health, and also with the current laws of the US.
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Pallus, A.C., Fleishman, L.J. & Castonguay, P.M. Modeling and measuring the visual detection of ecologically relevant motion by an Anolis lizard. J Comp Physiol A 196, 1–13 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-009-0487-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-009-0487-7