Breaking cover: neural responses to slow and fast camouflage-breaking motion

Primates need to detect and recognize camouflaged animals in natural environments. Camouflage-breaking movements are often the only visual cue available to accomplish this. Specifically, sudden movements are often detected before full recognition of the camouflaged animal is made, suggesting that initial processing of motion precedes the recognition of motion-defined contours or shapes. What are the neuronal mechanisms underlying this initial processing of camouflaged motion in the primate visual brain? We investigated this question using intrinsic-signal optical imaging of macaque V1, V2 and V4, along with computer simulations of the neural population responses. We found that camouflaged motion at low speed was processed as a direction signal by both direction- and orientation-selective neurons, whereas at high-speed camouflaged motion was encoded as a motion-streak signal primarily by orientation-selective neurons. No population responses were found to be invariant to the camouflage contours. These results suggest that the initial processing of camouflaged motion at low and high speeds is encoded as direction and motion-streak signals in primate early visual cortices. These processes are consistent with a spatio-temporal filter mechanism that provides for fast processing of motion signals, prior to full recognition of camouflage-breaking animals.