Topography of evoked potentials associated with illusory motion perception as a motion aftereffect

Motion aftereffect (MAE) is a type of motion illusion. After visual focusing on an object moving in one direction, an illusory perception of motion in the opposite direction occurs while the object suddenly stops moving. In this study we explored components and distribution of evoked potentials related to this motion illusion using MAE caused by motion of concentric rings. When a single array of moving rings was placed to straddle right and left visual fields, a significant bilateral increase of a positive component at about 160 ms (P160) was observed in the occipitotemporal region at the time subjects perceived the motion illusion; this increase was most prominent in the right posterior temporal region. Thus, an early positive component P160 occurs in relation to motion illusion, in agreement with previous results concerning perception of actual motion. When stimuli were presented to produce MAE limited to either the right or left visual hemifield, we also observed a P160 distributed mainly in the right temporal and parietal region. A significant increase in this component was observed in the right posterior temporal region with left hemifield stimulation, while no significant increase was observed with right hemifield stimulation. The right hemispheric dominance of P160 seemed to result partly from functional specialization of the right hemisphere, but hemispheric differences in attentional mechanisms also might contribute to the asymmetric distribution of P160.