Selective impairment of visual motion interpretation following lesions of the right occipito-parietal area in humans.

A group of eighteen patients selected on the basis of the anatomical locus of the lesion, normal visual acuity and the ability to discriminate visual motion, were assessed on the perception of Julesz Random-Dot stereograms and on three tasks of visual motion interpretation: Speed Discrimination, 3D-Structure-from-Motion and 2D-Form-from-motion. The results on these experimental tasks demonstrate a double dissociation of deficits on the visual analysis of motion and stereopsis in the patients with lesions to the posterior right hemisphere. The right occipital-parietal (ROP) group failed on the Stereopsis task and showed a dramatic impairment on the Speed Comparison and on the Structure-from-Motion experiments. They performed in the normal range, however, on the 2D-Form-from-Motion task. The right occipital-temporal (ROT) group, on the other hand, were severely impaired on the identification of two dimensional forms from motion or stereopsis. In both cases, however, they were able to obtain a coarse segregation of the figure from the background. The ROT group did not present significant deficits on the Speed Discrimination and the Structure-from-Motion tasks. The results are discussed in the light of recent physiological and psychophysical findings, and it is hypothesized that, in the human brain, visual deficits of motion interpretation and of stereopsis are associated with right occipital-parietal lesions.