scholarly journals Sensory Basis and Functional Role of Eye Movements Elicited During Locomotion in the Land Crab Cardisoma Guanhumi

1990 ◽  
Vol 154 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. JON P. BARNES ◽  
P. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Body Movement ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Image Motion ◽  
Optokinetic Responses ◽  
Land Crabs ◽  
Cardisoma Guanhumi

Eye movements in the horizontal plane and the rotatory component of body movement have been continuously recorded in land crabs, Cardisoma guanhumi Latreille, walking freely in an arena. The results show that the eyes compensate for locomotor turns by moving in the opposite direction to the body, thus reducing the image motion of surrounding objects on the retina. Gains often approach unity, so that stabilization of the rotatory component of self-generated image motion is good. Of the three compensatory eye reflexes that could contribute to these responses, optokinetic responses play a major role, since the gain of the responses of freely walking blinded crabs was about half that of crabs that could see. Since blinded crabs held above a ball moved their eyes whenever they rotated the ball about a vertical axis (i.e. turned), a significant role for leg proprioceptor-driven eye movements is also presumed. It is unclear whether vestibular nystagmus, driven by the statocysts, also has a role to play. In contrast to the high-gain compensatory responses that accompany turns, the translatory component of locomotion elicits compensatory eye movements only under the most favourable circumstances, when the crab walks along a runway facing a set of stripes. Even then, the responses are of very low gain (0.02-0.09). Amongst several possible factors, this is partly because lateral ommatidia, which drive the optokinetic responses, will face the poles of the flow field during sideways walking, and partly because stationary contrasts (as occur at the poles of the flow field) reduce the gain of optokinetic responses. It is argued that, by compensating for turns but not translatory locomotor movements, crabs effectively separate the rotatory from the translatory components of the visual flow field around them. Since only the former can be used in course control, while only the latter provides information on ground speed and the three-dimensional layout of the environment, such a separation makes good functional sense.

Effects of light intensity and pattern contrast on the ability of the land crab,Cardisoma guanhumi, to separate optic flow-field components

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 895-904 ◽  
Author(s):  
AARON P. JOHNSON ◽  
W. JON. P. BARNES ◽  
MARTIN W.S. MACAULEY
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Light Intensity ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Separation Mechanism ◽  
Partial Failure ◽  
Land Crab ◽  
Optokinetic Responses ◽  
Cardisoma Guanhumi ◽  
Background Contrast

Using a novel suite of computer-generated visual stimuli that mimicked components of optic flow, the visual responses of the tropical land crab,Cardisoma guanhumi, were investigated. We show that crabs are normally successful in distinguishing the rotational and translational components of the optic flow field, showing strong optokinetic responses to the former but not the latter. This ability was not dependant on the orientation of the crab, occurring both in “forwards-walking” and “sideways-walking” configurations. However, under conditions of low overall light intensity and/or low object/background contrast, the separation mechanism shows partial failure causing the crab to generate compensatory eye movements to translation, particularly in response to low-frequency (low-velocity) stimuli. Using this discovery, we then tested the ability of crabs to separate rotational and translational components in a combined rotation/translation flow field under different conditions. We demonstrate that, while crabs can successfully separate such a combined flow field under normal circumstances, showing compensatory eye movements only to the rotational component, they are unable to make this separation under conditions of low overall light intensity and low object/background contrast. Here, the responses to both flow-field components show summation when they are in phase, but, surprisingly, there is little reduction in the amplitude of responses to rotation when the translational component is in antiphase. Our results demonstrate that the crab's visual system finds separation of flow-field components a harder task than detection of movement, since the former shows partial failure at light intensities and/or object/background contrasts at which movement of the world around the crab is still generating high-gain optokinetic responses.

Local mechanisms for the separation of optic flow-field components in the land crab, Cardisoma guanhumi: A role for motion parallax?

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 905-911 ◽  
Author(s):  
AARON P. JOHNSON ◽  
W. JON. P. BARNES ◽  
MARTIN W.S. MACAULEY
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Motion Parallax ◽  
Contrast Ratio ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Low Contrast ◽  
Land Crab ◽  
Cardisoma Guanhumi ◽  
Field Separation

Although a number of global mechanisms have been proposed over the years that explain how crabs might separate the rotational and translational components of their optic flow field, there has been no evidence to date that local mechanisms such as motion parallax are used in this separation. We describe here a study that takes advantage of a recently developed suite of computer-generated visual stimuli that creates a three-dimensional world surrounding the crab in which we can simulate translational and rotational optic flow. We show that, while motion parallax is not the only mechanism used in flow-field separation, it does play a role in the recognition of translational optic flow fields in that, under conditions of low overall light intensity and low contrast ratio when crabs find the distinction between rotation and translation harder, smaller eye movements occur in response to translation when motion parallax cues are present than when they are absent. Thus, motion parallax is one of many cues that crabs use to separate rotational and translational optic flow by showing compensatory eye movements to only the former.

Roles of eyes, leg proprioceptors and statocysts in the compensatory eye movements of freely walking land crabs (Cardisoma guanhumi)

1998 ◽  
Vol 201 (24) ◽  
pp. 3395-3409
Author(s):  
H. Paul ◽  
W. J. P. Barnes ◽  
D. Varjú
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Angular Velocity ◽  
Regression Line ◽  
Angular Acceleration ◽  
High Gain ◽  
The Body ◽  
Retinal Slip ◽  
Land Crab ◽  
Land Crabs ◽  
Cardisoma Guanhumi

The compound eyes, the canal organs of the statocysts and proprioceptors in the legs all generate compensatory eye movements in the horizontal plane in the land crab Cardisoma guanhumi. Frequency analyses of the compensatory eye reflexes elicited by each of these inputs show that visual (V) and proprioceptive (P) reflexes respond best below 0.1 Hz, while statocyst (S)reflexes only achieve a high gain above this frequency. They thus increase the range of frequencies over which compensation can occur. Eye and body movements were recorded in an arena under all possible combinations of crabs seeing or blind (V+ or V-), with or without statocysts (S+ or S-) and freely walking or passively transported on a trolley (P+ or P-). Intact crabs (V+S+P+) show good stabilisation of the eyes in space, the only movements with respect to external coordinates being saccadic resetting movements (fast phases of nystagmus). The eyes thus compensate well for body turns, but are unaffected by translatory movements of the body and turns that are not accompanied by a change in the orientation of the long axis of the body in space. In the absence of any one sense, compensation for rotation is significantly impaired, whether measured by the increase in the width of the histograms of changes in the angular positions of the eyes in space ( capdelta &phgr; E), by the mean angular velocity of the eyes(slope of regression line, mE) with respect to the angular velocity of the body (mB) or by response gain plotted against angular acceleration of body turn (a). The absence of two senses reduces the crab's ability to compensate still further, with the statocyst-only condition (V-S+P-) being little better than the condition when all three senses are absent(V-S-P-).Such multisensory control of eye compensation for body rotation is discussed both in terms of making use of every available cue for reducing retinal slip and in making available the information content of the optic flow field.

scholarly journals Effect of Leg Dominance on The Center-of-Mass Kinematics During an Inside-of-the-Foot Kick in Amateur Soccer Players

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Zago ◽  
Andrea Francesco Motta ◽  
Andrea Mapelli ◽  
Isabella Annoni ◽  
Christel Galvani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Movement ◽  
Center Of Mass ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The Body ◽  
Soccer Players ◽  
Upper Body ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Movement Velocity ◽  
Ground Support ◽  
Analysis System

Abstract Soccer kicking kinematics has received wide interest in literature. However, while the instep-kick has been broadly studied, only few researchers investigated the inside-of-the-foot kick, which is one of the most frequently performed techniques during games. In particular, little knowledge is available about differences in kinematics when kicking with the preferred and non-preferred leg. A motion analysis system recorded the three-dimensional coordinates of reflective markers placed upon the body of nine amateur soccer players (23.0 ± 2.1 years, BMI 22.2 ± 2.6 kg/m2), who performed 30 pass-kicks each, 15 with the preferred and 15 with the non-preferred leg. We investigated skill kinematics while maintaining a perspective on the complete picture of movement, looking for laterality related differences. The main focus was laid on: anatomical angles, contribution of upper limbs in kick biomechanics, kinematics of the body Center of Mass (CoM), which describes the whole body movement and is related to balance and stability. When kicking with the preferred leg, CoM displacement during the ground-support phase was 13% higher (p<0.001), normalized CoM height was 1.3% lower (p<0.001) and CoM velocity 10% higher (p<0.01); foot and shank velocities were about 5% higher (p<0.01); arms were more abducted (p<0.01); shoulders were rotated more towards the target (p<0.01, 6° mean orientation difference). We concluded that differences in motor control between preferred and non-preferred leg kicks exist, particularly in the movement velocity and upper body kinematics. Coaches can use these results to provide effective instructions to players in the learning process, moving their focus on kicking speed and upper body behavior

Three-dimensional flow field around and downstream of a subscale model rotating vertical axis wind turbine

2016 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Ryan ◽  
Filippo Coletti ◽  
Christopher J. Elkins ◽  
John O. Dabiri ◽  
John K. Eaton
Keyword(s):  
Flow Field ◽  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Three Dimensional Flow ◽  
Dimensional Flow

Canal-Otolith Interactions After Off-Vertical Axis Rotations I. Spatial Reorientation of Horizontal Vestibuloocular Reflex

2000 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 1522-1535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Jaggi-Schwarz ◽  
Hubert Misslisch ◽  
Bernhard J. M. Hess
Keyword(s):  
Semicircular Canal ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Head Tilt ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Longitudinal Axis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
Pass Filter ◽  
Low Pass Filter ◽  
Spatial Reorientation

We examined the three-dimensional (3-D) spatial orientation of postrotatory eye velocity after horizontal off-vertical axis rotations by varying the final body orientation with respect to gravity. Three rhesus monkeys were oriented in one of two positions before the onset of rotation: pitched 24° nose-up or 90° nose-up (supine) relative to the earth-horizontal plane and rotated at ±60°/s around the body-longitudinal axis. After 10 turns, the animals were stopped in 1 of 12 final positions separated by 30°. An empirical analysis of the postrotatory responses showed that the resultant response plane remained space-invariant, i.e., accurately represented the actual head tilt plane at rotation stop. The alignment of the response vector with the spatial vertical was less complete. A complementary analysis, based on a 3-D model that implemented the spatial transformation and dynamic interaction of otolith and lateral semicircular canal signals, confirmed the empirical description of the spatial response. In addition, it allowed an estimation of the low-pass filter time constants in central otolith and semicircular canal pathways as well as the weighting ratio between direct and inertially transformed canal signals in the output. Our results support the hypothesis that the central vestibular system represents head velocity in gravity-centered coordinates by sensory integration of otolith and semicircular canal signals.

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