Topography of the motion aftereffect with and without eye movements

Although a lot is known about various properties of the motion aftereffect (MAE), there is no systematic study of the topographic organization of MAE. In the current study, first we provided a topographic map of the MAE to investigate its spatial properties in detail. To provide a fine topographic map, we measured MAE with small test stimuli presented at different loci after adaptation to motion in a large region within the visual field. We found that strength of MAE is highest on the internal edge of the adapted area. Our results show a sharper aftereffect boundary for the shearing motion compared to compression and expansion boundaries. In the second experiment, using a similar paradigm, we investigated topographic deformation of the MAE area after a single saccadic eye movement. Surprisingly, we found that topographic map of MAE splits into two separate regions after the saccade: one corresponds to the retinal location of the adapted stimulus and the other matches the spatial location of the adapted region on the display screen. The effect was stronger at the retinotopic location. The third experiment is basically replication of the second experiment in a smaller zone that confirms the results of previous experiments in individual subjects. The eccentricity of spatiotopic area is different from retinotopic area in the second experiment; Experiment 3 controls the effect of eccentricity and confirms the major results of the second experiment.