Common and independent processing of visual motion perception and oculomotor response

Visual motion signals are used not only to drive motion perception but also to elicit oculomotor responses. A fundamental question is whether perceptual and oculomotor processing of motion signals shares a common mechanism. This study aimed to address this question using visual motion priming, in which the perceived direction of a directionally ambiguous stimulus is biased in the same (positive priming) or opposite (negative priming) direction as that of a priming stimulus. The priming effect depends on the duration of the priming stimulus. It is assumed that positive and negative priming are mediated by high- and low-level motion systems, respectively. Participants were asked to judge the perceived direction of a π-phase-shifted test grating after a smoothly drifting priming grating during varied durations. Their eye movements were measured while the test grating was presented. The perception and eye movements were discrepant under positive priming and correlated under negative priming on a trial-by-trial basis when an interstimulus interval was inserted between the priming and test stimuli, indicating that the eye movements were evoked by the test stimulus per se. These findings suggest that perceptual and oculomotor responses are induced by a common mechanism at a low level of motion processing but by independent mechanisms at a high level of motion processing.