Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
2
pubmed:dateCreated
1992-10-1
pubmed:abstractText
Defensive responses to looming visual stimuli have been obtained in a wide variety of species, including human infants as young as one week. This phenomenon has not, however, been formally demonstrated for adults under laboratory conditions. In this paper it is reported that similar responses, namely avoidance movements of the head, can be obtained in most human adults provided that they are suitably distracted by playing a computer tracking game. Such behaviours were not obtained when subjects were not so distracted. The use of control conditions also ruled out the possibility that simple movement cues from stimuli presented on a noncollision trajectory are sufficient stimulus to obtain defensive responses. It is of interest to note that latencies for avoidance movements were significantly shorter than those for orienting movements in the same situation, but were no different from the latencies for orienting movements when subjects were not distracted. It is argued that these findings are consistent with the proposition that defensive head movements to looming stimuli, like orienting movements to novel peripheral stimuli, represent a basic visual competence that is normally suppressed (or subsumed) by higher competences. The decision to avoid is probably based on the computation of time to contact, and may reflect the operation of a subcortical system for elementary analysis of optic flow.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:issn
0301-0066
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
21
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
245-59
pubmed:dateRevised
2004-11-17
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1992
pubmed:articleTitle
Use of a distracting task to obtain defensive head movements to looming visual stimuli by human adults in a laboratory setting.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article