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Object size determines the spatial spread of visual time

Yes / A key question for temporal processing research is how the nervous system
extracts event duration, despite a notable lack of neural structures dedicated
to duration encoding. This is in stark contrast with the orderly arrangement
of neurons tasked with spatial processing. In this study, we examine the linkage
between the spatial and temporal domains. We use sensory adaptation
techniques to generate after-effects where perceived duration is either compressed
or expanded in the opposite direction to the adapting stimulus’
duration. Our results indicate that these after-effects are broadly tuned,
extending over an area approximately five times the size of the stimulus.
This region is directly related to the size of the adapting stimulus—the
larger the adapting stimulus the greater the spatial spread of the aftereffect.
We construct a simple model to test predictions based on overlapping
adapted versus non-adapted neuronal populations and show that our effects
cannot be explained by any single, fixed-scale neural filtering. Rather, our
effects are best explained by a self-scaled mechanism underpinned by
duration selective neurons that also pool spatial information across earlier
stages of visual processing. / J.H. is supported by the Vision Research Trust (43069). N.W.R. is supported by a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship (WT097387).

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/8751
Date27 July 2016
CreatorsFulcher, Corinne, McGraw, Paul V., Roach, N.W., Whitaker, David J., Heron, James
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Published version
Rights© 2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited., CC-BY

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