Visual discrimination and learning of motion trajectories

迄今为止，视觉运动感知的研究可以细分为物体运动（通常是平移）和生物运动，通常用点光显示器进行研究。然而，仍然有一个未被探索的类别的运动感知，在人类的感知和学习中起着重要的作用：封闭的运动轨迹的感知。在装配线上控制机器，体育运动中的许多动作以及其他技能动作都涉及识别和学习重复的运动模式。对复杂运动轨迹的感知可以被认为与以前没有研究过的生物运动类型有关。在这个建议中，我介绍了一种新的刺激范式研究歧视，学习和分类的周期性运动轨迹。拟议的实验将利用心理物理学和大脑成像（fMRI）来探索这一新领域。

Research on visual motion perception to date may be subdivided into object motion (usually translation) and biological motion, generally studied with point-light displays. However, there remains an unexplored category of motion perception that plays an important role in human perception and learning: perception of closed motion trajectories. Controlling a machine on an assembly line, many movements in sports, and other skilled actions all involve recognizing and learning repetitive patterns of movement. Perception of complex motion trajectories may be regarded as related to biological motion of a type not previously studied. In this proposal I introduce a novel stimulus paradigm for studying discrimination, learning, and categorization of periodic motion trajectories. Proposed experiments will utilize psychophysics and brain imaging (fMRI) to explore this new area.