Neuronal responses in the motion pathway of the macaque monkey to natural optic flow stimuli

Neurones in higher visual motion areas in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) of the macaque monkey respond to abstract random dot optic flow stimuli. Higher motion areas may not only represent, but in a next computational stage also analyse the flow field to determine, for instance, the direction of heading for navigation purposes. Real world visual scenes differ in several aspects from these abstract optic flow stimuli. We tested the neuronal response to naturalistic optic flow stimuli which simulated egomotion in different virtual environments and contained different numbers of visual cues. Neuronal activity depended mainly on the position of the focus of expansion rather than on other visual cues. This finding supports the hypothesis that higher motion areas within the STS analyse optic flow in natural scenes and can thus signal the direction of heading.