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Updated: Mar 30, 2026
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Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
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Constructing Visual Perception of Body Movement with the Motor Cortex
Guido Orgs1, Anna Dovern2, Nobuhiro Hagura3
1Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, SE14 6NW, London, UK Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, WC1N 3AR, London, UK.
Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|November 5, 2015
Summary
The brain perceives fluent movement from static images by engaging motor areas. This "motor way of seeing" involves the primary motor cortex and supplementary motor areas for apparent biological motion.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Perception
Background:
- The human brain excels at inferring fluent motion from static visual information.
- Apparent biological motion (ABM) perception involves interpreting sequences of body postures as movement.
- Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying ABM is crucial for comprehending visual perception.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the brain mechanisms involved in perceiving fluent apparent biological motion (ABM) from static body posture sequences.
- To identify brain areas responsible for the perceptual reconstruction of body movement.
- To explore the role of motor areas in processing visual motion cues.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity.
- Participants viewed sequences of body and nonbody postures, ordered to create fluent (ABC) or nonfluent (ACB) apparent motion.
- An implicit duration judgment task was employed to measure movement fluency perception.
Main Results:
- Fluent apparent motion sequences of body postures led to subjective duration overestimations compared to nonfluent sequences.
- This body-specific duration perception bias was linked to heightened blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses in the primary motor cortex (M1) and supplementary motor areas (SMA).
- Increased functional connectivity was observed between M1/SMA and the right fusiform body area during fluent ABM perception.
Conclusions:
- Perceptual reconstruction of fluent movement from static body postures recruits motor areas, not just visual processing regions.
- This suggests a
- motor way of seeing
- where motor system engagement is integral to visual motion perception.
- The findings highlight the cooperative interaction between visual and motor systems in processing biological motion.
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