ORGANIZATION OF CONTOUR FROM MOTION PROCESSING IN PRIMATE VISUAL-CORTEX

A major objective of visual processing is the segmentation of the scen e into separate objects. Relative motion is one of the most salient se gmentation cues. In man and monkey, we recorded visually evoked potent ials to a stimulus, designed to signal the presence of relative motion processing. Relative motion specific response components were only el icited when human observers perceive contours from relative motion. Eq uivalent dipole source localization of the responses indicated the inv olvement of primary visual cortex in man. This was corroborated by int racortical recordings in awake monkey, where sources of the specific c omponents are located within the supra- and infragranular layers of pr imary visual cortex. It is concluded that V1 does not merely provide a n input stage to contour from motion processing, but that segmentation information, based on relative motion, is present at this early corti cal level.