Decoding Neural Responses to Motion-in-Depth Using EEG

Abstract

Two stereoscopic cues that underlie the perception of motion-in-depth (MID) are changes in retinal disparity over time (CD) and interocular velocity differences (IOVD). These cues have independent spatiotemporal sensitivity profiles, depend upon different low-level stimulus properties, and are potentially processed along separate cortical pathways. Here, we ask whether these MID cues code for different motion directions: do they give rise to discriminable patterns of neural signals, and is there evidence for their convergence onto a single “motion-in-depth” pathway? To answer this, we use a decoding algorithm to test whether, and when, patterns of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals measured from across the full scalp, generated in response to CD- and IOVD-isolating stimuli moving toward or away in depth can be distinguished. We find that both MID cue type and 3D-motion direction can be decoded at different points in the EEG timecourse and that direction decoding cannot be accounted for by static disparity information. Remarkably, we find evidence for late processing convergence: IOVD motion direction can be decoded relatively late in the timecourse based on a decoder trained on CD stimuli, and vice versa. We conclude that early CD and IOVD direction decoding performance is dependent upon fundamentally different low-level stimulus features, but that later stages of decoding performance may be driven by a central, shared pathway that is agnostic to these features. Overall, these data are the first to show that neural responses to CD and IOVD cues that move toward and away in depth can be decoded from EEG signals, and that different aspects of MID-cues contribute to decoding performance at different points along the EEG timecourse.

The Right Hemisphere Is Responsible for the Greatest Differences in Human Brain Response to High-Arousing Emotional versus Neutral Stimuli: A MEG Study

“…Artificially increasing the number of samples by employing bootstrapping and random resampling can help address potential issues such as smaller sample sizes and limited stimuli presentation [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Such resampling methods have been used in many studies analyzing the brain’s response to emotional stimuli and have provided accurate results with high degrees of reliability [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ].…”

Two Disparity Channels in Human Visual Cortex With Different Contrast and Blur Sensitivity

“…Recent work has suggested that the direction of motion in depth can be decoded from high-density VEP recordings. 47 However, it is unclear whether this approach could be used to measure stereoacuity, as the results were obtained by recording many trials with highly suprathreshold disparities.…”

Two disparity channels in human visual cortex with different contrast and blur sensitivity

“…The standard psychophysical probe of stereopsis is the discrimination of the sign of disparity, rather than the mere detection of the presence or absence of disparity. Recent work has suggested that the direction of motion in depth can be decoded from high-density VEP recordings (Himmelberg et al, 2020). However, it is unclear whether this approach could be used to measure stereoacuity, as the results were obtained by recording many trials with highly supra-threshold disparities.…”

“…The standard psychophysical probe of stereopsis is the discrimination of the sign of disparity, rather than the mere detection of the presence or absence of disparity. Recent work has suggested that the direction of motion in depth can be decoded from high-density VEP recordings (Himmelberg et al, 2020).…”