Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
203,234 studies31 sourcesUpdated 41 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Journal of Neuroscience

Cortical Origins of the Flash-Lag Effect distortions: The Influence of Retinotopic Map Architecture

  • Salvatore Giancani1
  • Sandrine Chemla1
  • Frédéric Chavane1
  • Manuel Vidal1
  1. 1Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS, Marseille 13005, France
Read full textPDFDOICite

Abstract

The flash-lag effect (FLE) is an illusion whereby the position of a moving object is perceived as being offset in the direction of movement relative to a flashed object. This perceptual misalignment has been posited as a key phenomenon in explaining our ability to accurately predict the future position of moving objects, despite the delays in neuronal processing. Our working hypothesis is that the FLE is resulting from the anticipation generated by propagation of neural activity within visual cortical retinotopical maps. According to this hypothesis, the FLE should be affected by discontinuities and anisotropies of the retinotopic map architecture. Using psychophysics in humans (female ratio of 15/24) we show that the FLE is strongly affected by crossing and the direction of motion in respect to retinotopic features, such as vertical and horizontal meridians and the fovea. The specificity of how early visual cortical retinotopic maps are splitted and magnified around these features led us to suggest that the FLE distortions emerge from propagation in retinotopically organized networks, particularly V1. This work bridges the gap between human psychophysics and the known constraints of retinotopic maps layout, offering a testable framework for future studies of motion position encoding in the visual hierarchy.

Related

  1. Pre-saccadic suppression and compensatory cortical distortions support predictive visual remapping
    Xize Xu, Sachira Denagamage, Anirvan S. Nandy +1
    bioRxivPreprintCC BYFull textNeurosciencebioRxivPMC
  2. Epigenetic perturbation unravels diverse origins, state conversions and de-differentiation of cortical astrocytes
    M. Mirza, T. Hohl, C. L. Fullio +4
    bioRxivPreprintCC BYFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv
  3. Self-supervised representations reveal the genetic architecture of human cortical folding
    Antoine Dufournet, Julien Laval, Joël Chavas +4
    HALPreprintAll rights reservedFull textGenetics & genomicsNeuroscienceHALbioRxiv
  4. Plastic shifts in web architecture alter signal physics and influence collective behavior and ecological prevalence
    Bharat Parthasarathy, Uttej Jami, Narayanan Satyamurthy +4
    iSciencePeer-reviewedCC BY-NC 4.0Zoology & animal behaviourCrossrefCell Press
  5. The genetic architecture of cortical similarity networks
    Isaac Sebenius, Varun Warrier, Richard A. I. Bethlehem +7
    Nature CommunicationsPeer-reviewedCC BYFull text6 citedNeuroscienceOpenAlex

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{giancani2026cortical,
  title = {{Cortical Origins of the Flash-Lag Effect distortions: The Influence of Retinotopic Map Architecture}},
  author = {Salvatore Giancani and Sandrine Chemla and Frédéric Chavane and Manuel Vidal},
  journal = {Journal of Neuroscience},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1523/jneurosci.1953-25.2026},
  url = {https://hal.science/hal-05761642v1},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Cortical Origins of the Flash-Lag Effect distortions: The Influence of Retinotopic Map Architecture
AU  - Salvatore Giancani
AU  - Sandrine Chemla
AU  - Frédéric Chavane
AU  - Manuel Vidal
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/16
JO  - Journal of Neuroscience
DO  - 10.1523/jneurosci.1953-25.2026
UR  - https://hal.science/hal-05761642v1
AB  - The flash-lag effect (FLE) is an illusion whereby the position of a moving object is perceived as being offset in the direction of movement relative to a flashed object. This perceptual misalignment has been posited as a key phenomenon in explaining our ability to accurately predict the future position of moving objects, despite the delays in neuronal processing. Our working hypothesis is that the FLE is resulting from the anticipation generated by propagation of neural activity within visual cortical retinotopical maps. According to this hypothesis, the FLE should be affected by discontinuities and anisotropies of the retinotopic map architecture. Using psychophysics in humans (female ratio of 15/24) we show that the FLE is strongly affected by crossing and the direction of motion in respect to retinotopic features, such as vertical and horizontal meridians and the fovea. The specificity of how early visual cortical retinotopic maps are splitted and magnified around these features led us to suggest that the FLE distortions emerge from propagation in retinotopically organized networks, particularly V1. This work bridges the gap between human psychophysics and the known constraints of retinotopic maps layout, offering a testable framework for future studies of motion position encoding in the visual hierarchy.
SN  - 0270-6474
SN  - 1529-2401
ER  -