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Role of corollary discharge in space constancy

Perception & Psychophysics volume 34, pages 371–380 (1983)Cite this article

Abstract

Visual fixation can be maintained in spite of finger pressure on the monocularly viewing eye. We measured the amount of extraocular muscle effort required to counter the eyepress as the secondary deviation of the occluded fellow eye. Using this method, without drugs or neurological lesions, we have shown that corollary discharge (CD) governs perception of position of a luminous point in darkness, that is, an unstructured visual field. CD also controls visuomotor coordination measured with open-loop pointing and the matching of visual and auditory direction in light and in darkness. The incorrectly biased CD is superseded byvisual position perception in normal structured environments, a phenomenon we call visual capture of Matin. When the structured visual field is extinguished, leaving only a luminous point, gradual release from visual capture and return to the biased CD direction follows after a delay of about 5 sec.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Science and Neurology, University of California, 94720, Berkeley, California

    Lawrence Stark & Bruce Bridgeman

  2. Department of Physiological Optics, University of California, 94720, Berkeley, California

    Lawrence Stark & Bruce Bridgeman

Authors
  1. Lawrence Stark
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  2. Bruce Bridgeman
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Additional information

This work was carried out while B. Bridgeman was on sabbatical leave from the University of California, Santa Cruz, partially supported by NSF Grant BNS79-06858.

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Stark, L., Bridgeman, B. Role of corollary discharge in space constancy. Perception & Psychophysics 34, 371–380 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203050

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203050

Keywords

  • Sound Source
  • Space Constancy
  • Corollary Discharge
  • Monocular Viewing
  • Visual Capture