Going beyond the information given: the relation of illusory visual motion to brain activity

Abstract

There are many instances in which human subjects perceive a component which is not physically present in a visual stimulus. To study the cerebral activity which correlates with the perception of such an illusory component, we chose Enigma, a static figure in which many subjects perceive illusory motion. By using the technique of positron emission tomography (PET) we recorded the relative regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the brain of 13 subjects while they viewed it and reported seeing the illusory motion. We found that, when subjects perceived illusory motion, the increases in rCBF took place in regions of the brain closely related to, and perhaps identical with, area V5, as defined by the site of rCBF change that took place when the same subjects viewed a physically moving stimulus. In addition, there was activity in other cortical areas outside the visual cortex, not present when the subjects had been viewing objective motion. This suggests that the generation of illusory motion depends not only on a highly specific visual area but also on relative contributions from other parts of the brain that are not activated to the same extent when humans perceive objective motion.