| Literature DB >> 18958210 |
Jennifer T Coull1, Franck Vidal, Ceydric Goulon, Bruno Nazarian, Cathy Craig.
Abstract
Accurate estimates of the time-to-contact (TTC) of approaching objects are crucial for survival. We used an ecologically valid driving simulation to compare and contrast the neural substrates of egocentric (head-on approach) and allocentric (lateral approach) TTC tasks in a fully factorial, event-related fMRI design. Compared to colour control tasks, both egocentric and allocentric TTC tasks activated left ventral premotor cortex/frontal operculum and inferior parietal cortex, the same areas that have previously been implicated in temporal attentional orienting. Despite differences in visual and cognitive demands, both TTC and temporal orienting paradigms encourage the use of temporally predictive information to guide behaviour, suggesting these areas may form a core network for temporal prediction. We also demonstrated that the temporal derivative of the perceptual index tau (tau-dot) held predictive value for making collision judgements and varied inversely with activity in primary visual cortex (V1). Specifically, V1 activity increased with the increasing likelihood of reporting a collision, suggesting top-down attentional modulation of early visual processing areas as a function of subjective collision. Finally, egocentric viewpoints provoked a response bias for reporting collisions, rather than no-collisions, reflecting increased caution for head-on approaches. Associated increases in SMA activity suggest motor preparation mechanisms were engaged, despite the perceptual nature of the task.Entities:
Keywords: attention; collision; fMRI; parietal; prediction; premotor; timing; visual
Year: 2008 PMID: 18958210 PMCID: PMC2572212 DOI: 10.3389/neuro.09.010.2008
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Hum Neurosci ISSN: 1662-5161 Impact factor: 3.169
Figure 1Task structure and timing. contact egocentric trial colour allocentric trial. A briefly-presented cue (“contact” or “colour”) instructed subjects to make time-to-contact (TTC) or colour judgements for a forthcoming animation. During the animation subjects saw a car (the dark green foreground object in panel ; the blue lower field object in panel ) approaching a wall (the light green object in panels and ) either from the driver's point of view (egocentric condition ) or from a bird's eye view (allocentric condition ). The TTC task was to estimate potential contact between the car and wall while the colour task was to detect a possible colour-match between the car and wall. Subjects responded to “yes” or “no” response options presented on the screen, whose positions varied from trial to trial. Subjects made an index- or middle-finger right-handed button-press corresponding to whether their contact or colour-match judgement (yes/no) appeared on the left or right of the screen, respectively. The colour of the car changed gradually throughout its trajectory, while the colour of the wall remained constant (top panel). Exactly the same animations were used for the TTC and colour tasks. ISI = inter-stimulus interval; ITI = inter-trial interval.
Mean (+SE) task performance during fMRI acquisition.
| TTC allocentric | TTC egocentric | Colour allocentric | Colour egocentric | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy (% correct) | 75.9 (3.0) | 68.5 (1.6) | 77.0 (2.1) | 76.9 (1.4) |
| Reaction time (ms) | 617.49 (24.68) | 614.73 (22.74) | 604.01 (20.35) | 599.59 (21.29) |
| 1.62 (0.18) | 1.40 (0.11) | 1.65 (0.15) | 1.68 (0.11) | |
| β | 2.27 (0.37) | 0.30 (0.04) | 1.11 (0.22) | 0.76 (0.16) |
Higher d′ scores reflect more accurate performance. A β score of 1 reflects a lack of response bias, lower β scores reflect a more liberal response bias (more likely to say there was a collision/colour-match) while higher β scores reflect a more conservative response bias (more likely to say there was no collision/colour-match).
Figure 2Predictive value of tau-dot for making “contact” decisions. Mean performance (averaged across subjects) on TTC and colour tasks is plotted for each value of tau-dot for allocentric and egocentric viewpoints. Performance is measured as the proportion of trials in which the subject made a YES response (i.e. when the subject decided that a TTC trial would result in contact, or that a colour trial contained a colour-match). As expected, and for both alloentric and egocentric viewpoints, there was a significant relationship between tau-dot and percentage of trials judged to result in contact (♦), but no significant relationship between tau-dot and the percentage of trials judged to result in a colour-match (). Specifically, the lower the tau-dot value the more likely the subject was to make a “contact” decision. Fitted curves represent the result of the logistic regression analysis. Each value of tau-dot was calculated using distances between the car and wall and the car's motion parameters (Supplementary Material 2). A tau-dot value of −0.5 represents the objective cut-off between a contact and no-contact trial.
Colour network.
| Anatomical structure | Allocentric | Egocentric | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R ventrolateral visual cortex (V4) | 36, −87, −24 | 4.50 | 30, −63, −15 | 3.36 |
| L ventrolateral visual cortex (V4) | −36, −63, −24 | 4.15 | −27, −75, −24 | 4.87 |
| R intraparietal sulcus | 30, −66, 42 | 4.19 | 30, −66, 42 | 5.35 |
| L intraparietal sulcus | −30, −69, 39 | 3.65 | −30, −72, 33 | 4.36 |
| Left middle frontal gyrus | −51, 6, 36 | 4.30 | −45, 12, 36 | 4.07 |
| Retrosplenial cortex | 6, −42, 0 | 4.75 | – | – |
| Primary visual cortex (V1) | 0, −81, 9 | 3.69 | – | – |
Areas of significantly increased regional activity during the colour minus TTC tasks for allocentric and egocentric viewpoints. Areas common to allocentric and egocentric viewpoints are illustrated in Figure .
Figure 3Task-specific networks. tasks preferentially activated visual area V4 (x, y, z = −18, −75, −12; 36, −60, −21) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) (x, y, z = −30, −69, 39; 30, −66, 42) bilaterally during both allocentric and egocentric viewpoints. Activations are rendered onto a standard template brain, and superimposed onto coronal (y = −69 mm) and transverse (z = −18 mm) slices of the averaged structural MRI. tasks preferentially activated left pars opercularis of the inferior frontal lobe (part of ventral premotor cortex (vPMC)) (x, y, z = −51, 6, 3) and the supramarginal gyrus of left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) (x, y, z = −63, −45, 39) during both allocentric and egocentric viewpoints. Activations are rendered onto a standard template brain, and superimposed onto saggital (x = −51 and −60 mm for vPMC and IPL activations respectively) and transverse (z = 3 and 39 mm for vPMC and IPL activations respectively) slices of the averaged structural MRI. Areas of activity common to allocentric and egocentric viewpoints were derived from a logical AND inclusive-masking procedure.
TTC network.
| Anatomical structure | Allocentric | Egocentric | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L ventral premotor cortex/frontal operculum (BA44) | −51, 6, 3 | 4.46 | −45, 3, 0 | 3.93 |
| L inferior parietal cortex (BA40) | −63, −45, 39 | 4.32 | −57, −45, 39 | 3.66 |
| R rostral prefrontal cortex (BA10) | 12, 60, −6 | 3.98 | – | – |
| R posterior cingulate/precuneus | 9, −42, 42 | 4.93 | – | – |
| L posterior cingulate /precuneus | −15, −30, 42 | 4.37 | – | – |
| R dorsolateral visual cortex (BA19) | 42, −84, 27 | 3.99 | – | – |
| L dorsolateral visual cortex (BA19) | −45, −75, 24 | 4.22 | – | – |
| L lateral visual cortex (V5) | −57, −72, 9 | 3.97 | – | – |
| Primary visual cortex (V1) | – | – | −6, −105, 3 | 4.36 |
Areas of significantly increased regional activity during the TTC minus colour tasks for allocentric and egocentric viewpoints. Areas common to allocentric and egocentric viewpoints are illustrated in Figure .
Figure 4Neural activity varies as a function of tau-dot. Activity in primary visual cortex (V1) and Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) increased as tau-dot value decreased, indicating a parametric response to the increasing certitude of a collision (see Figure 2 for the behavioural corollary of this response). V1 activity was modulated during both allocentric (yellow) and egocentric (red) viewpoints, whereas SMA activity was modulated during egocentric viewpoints only. Activations are displayed on transverse (z = 9 mm) and coronal (y = 0 mm) slices of the averaged structural MRI of all 12 subjects.
Tau-dot modulations.
| Anatomical structure | Allocentric | Egocentric | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positively correlated with tau-dot | ||||
| R anterior cingulate | 9, 30, 15 | 3.66 | −9, 30, 33 | 4.43 |
| R inferior frontal cortex (BA44) | – | – | 48, 3, 15 | 3.86 |
| L inferior frontal cortex (BA45) | – | – | −48, 24, 15 | 3.80 |
| L intraparietal sulcus | – | – | −33, −60, 24 | 3.81 |
| L ventromedial visual cortex | – | – | −21, −99, −9 | 4.51 |
| Negatively correlated with tau-dot | ||||
| Primary visual cortex (V1) | −15, −75, 12 | 4.66 | −6, −72, 9 | 4.54 |
| SMA – ventral | – | – | −3, 3, 48 | 4.16 |
| SMA – dorsal | – | 12, 0, 75 | 3.96 | |
| Negatively correlated with tau-dot | ||||
| R temporal pole (BA22) | 60, −9, 6 | 4.81 | – | – |
| L inferior parietal cortex (BA40) | – | – | −51, −57, 39 | 3.36 |
| R superior temporal gyrus (BA22) | – | – | 57, −57, 21 | 4.19 |
| L middle temporal gyrus (BA21) | – | – | −60, −48, −6 | 3.91 |
| R dorsomedial visual cortex | – | – | 15, −90, 30 | 3.67 |
Linear and quadratic modulations of TTC-specific activity as a function of tau-dot. Data are reported for both allocentric and egocentric viewpoints. L = left, R = right. BA = Brodmann's area.
The 16 different values of tau-dot at animation offset were calculated using the intial distance of the car from the wall, the car's initial velocity, the car's rate of deceleration, and the final distance from the wall when the animation ended. This resulted in eight scenarios in which there would have been contact between the car and wall had the animation continued (tau-dot < −0.5), and eight in which there would have been no contact (tau-dot ≥ −0.5). At animation onset, tau-dot values varied around −0.5 for all scenarios (range from −0.447 to −0.548) meaning subjects could not yet accurately predict whether or not there would be a collision. Note that tau-dot is orthogonal to speed or image size since different tau-dot values result from different combinations of motion or distance variables.
| Initial distance (m) | Initial velocity (m− 1) | Deceleration (m− 2) | Final distance (m) | Contact | Display time (s) | Tau-dot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 57.69 | 30.3 | 7.2 | 6 | Yes | 2.38 | −0.75 |
| 57.69 | 29.7 | 7.2 | 6 | Yes | 2.49 | −0.69 |
| 57.69 | 30.3 | 7.2 | 12 | Yes | 1.97 | −0.67 |
| 57.69 | 29.7 | 7.2 | 12 | Yes | 2.05 | −0.61 |
| 62.505 | 30.3 | 7.2 | 6 | Yes | 2.79 | −0.59 |
| 57.69 | 30.3 | 7.8 | 6 | Yes | 2.53 | −0.58 |
| 62.505 | 30.3 | 7.2 | 12 | Yes | 2.29 | −0.55 |
| 57.69 | 30.3 | 7.8 | 12 | Yes | 2.05 | −0.54 |
| 57.69 | 29.7 | 7.8 | 12 | No | 2.14 | −0.45 |
| 62.505 | 29.7 | 7.2 | 12 | No | 2.40 | −0.44 |
| 57.69 | 29.7 | 7.8 | 6 | No | 2.69 | −0.38 |
| 62.505 | 29.7 | 7.2 | 6 | No | 2.98 | −0.37 |
| 62.505 | 30.3 | 7.8 | 12 | No | 2.42 | −0.28 |
| 62.505 | 29.7 | 7.8 | 12 | No | 2.56 | −0.01 |
| 62.505 | 30.3 | 7.8 | 6 | No | 3.11 | 0.28 |
| 62.505 | 29.7 | 7.8 | 6 | No | 3.71 | 75.47 |