一項新研究揭開了“旋轉(zhuǎn)蛇”（Rotating Snakes）視覺錯覺如何欺騙大腦的奧秘。

Credit: Akiyoshi Kitaoka

早前有研究表明,，這種漩渦運動錯覺是由眼睛慢慢飄離中央目標(biāo)物所引發(fā)的,。但鳳凰城巴羅神經(jīng)學(xué)研究所（ Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix）的視覺神經(jīng)科學(xué)家通過跟蹤8位志愿者的眼球運動,，得出了一個完全不同的解釋。

實驗中,，志愿者在看到漩渦時,，打開按鈕,，漩渦消失，關(guān)閉按鈕,。研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn),，在志愿者看到漩渦前，眼球開始閃爍或者微掃視（microsaccades）,，當(dāng)志愿者微掃視頻率降低,，幻覺則開始消失，漩渦也隨即停止,。Jorge Otero Millan將這一發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)表在4月25日的 Journal of Neuroscience上 ,。

這一發(fā)現(xiàn)可用于幻覺產(chǎn)生的研究，研究知覺與現(xiàn)實之間的失和有助于更深入的了解人的大腦活動,。

doi: 10.1523/?JNEUROSCI.5823-11.2012
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PMID:
Microsaccades and Blinks Trigger Illusory Rotation in the “Rotating Snakes” Illusion

Jorge Otero-Millan, Stephen L. Macknik, and Susana Martinez-Conde

Certain repetitive arrangements of luminance gradients elicit the perception of strong illusory motion. Among them, the “Rotating Snakes Illusion” has generated a large amount of interest in the visual neurosciences, as well as in the public. Prior evidence indicates that the Rotating Snakes illusion depends critically on eye movements, yet the specific eye movement types involved and their associated neural mechanisms remain controversial. According to recent reports, slow ocular drift—a nonsaccadic type of fixational eye movement—drives the illusion, whereas microsaccades produced during attempted fixation fail to do so. Here, we asked human subjects to indicate the presence or absence of rotation during the observation of the illusion while we simultaneously recorded their eye movements with high precision. We found a strong quantitative link between microsaccade and blink production and illusory rotation. These results suggest that transient oculomotor events such as microsaccades, saccades, and blinks, rather than continuous drift, act to trigger the illusory motion in the Rotating Snakes illusion.