Neural encoding of innate preference to gravity-defying motion
Kobylkov, D.; Vallortigara, G.
Show abstract
The ability to detect animate objects is a fundamental property of the animal visual system. Among the cues used to infer animacy, gravity provides an important reference for identifying animate motion. Earlier work has demonstrated that upward-moving objects, which violate gravitational constraints, elicit spontaneous attention in newborn humans and domestic chicks. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this innate predisposition remain unclear. We recorded neural activity in the nidopallium of one-week-old domestic chicks as they observed stimuli moving upward or downward. In parallel, we analyzed spontaneous behavioral responses with video-based tracking and high-speed accelerometer data. This analysis revealed a robust attentional bias toward upward-moving, gravity-defying stimuli. We identified neurons in the NCL that encode the direction of motion, most of which responded preferentially to upward movement. Moreover, the population activity of direction-sensitive neurons successfully predicted the spontaneous behavioral response to upward-moving objects.
Matching journals
The top 4 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Mirror Neurons are Modulated by Grip Force and Reward Expectation in the Sensorimotor Cortices (S1, M1, PMd, PMv) 93%
- Distinct timescales for the neuronal encoding of vocal signals in a high-order auditory area 93%
- Audiovisual integration in the Mauthner cell enhances escape probability and reduces response latency 93%
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.