The Biomotion project main goal is to integrate knowledge from the fields of psychophysics, neurophysiology and computational theory on the multidisciplinary scientific theme of Vision. Under the common subject of the perception of biological motion, we propose to study the human visual perception system, collect psychophysical and neurophysiological data, investigate computational vision models and design biologically inspired integrated electronic circuits.

One of the most important senses, found in the majority of the animals, and also in the human being, is vision. It is fundamentally through this sense that the individual perceives the surrounding environment, its own movement and the movement of other individuals. Movement detection is the most evident faculty found in biological vision systems. Its importance is vital for locomotion in the surrounding environment, for movement detection of other beings, or animated objects, and in all the aspects that relate with mobility and action. Biological movement patterns are a kind of stimuli to which the human visual system apparently responds with promptness and effortlessly. Nevertheless, it involves the integration of form and motion perception pathways in the visual cortex with interconnections that remain to be investigated and identified.

The rationale of this project is as follows:

1. First, we will use known and established paradigms of visual motion perception to devise and design several psychophysical experiments;
2. The perception experiments will be carried out in a virtual reality immersive environment with human subjects and their perceptive responses, such as reaction delays, will be recorded together with other neurophysiological variables such as evoked response potentials, thereby enabling further understanding of cortical chronometry of motion processing;
3. For some of the experiments, functional magnetic resonance imaging will be used in normal subjects to map human visual cortical circuits involved in biological motion perception;
4. The stimuli will be used as inputs to unsupervised learning algorithms, formulated according to high-order algebraic methods, capable of characterizing their multidimensional nature;
5. From the outputs of these methods, we expect to obtain sparse perceptive codes or neural coding “atoms” that match or, at least, correlate to specific human perceptive responses and, therefore, devise and propose new computational models that enclose the complexity of biological motion perception;
6. Inspired in those models, dynamic image processing and analysis algorithms will be designed and the ones that best fit will be implemented in mixed signal integrated electronic circuits, in order to achieve computational and energetic efficiency;
7. Finally, this artificial vision system will be evaluated, according to its responses and performance with respect to the biological movement pattern recognition. If properly formulated and biologically plausible, the computational models proposed can further be used to design new psychophysical experiments to confirm hypothesis about mechanisms in biological motion perception and effectively closing the loop.

Two tasks are needed and planned to assure the correct calibration of the virtual immersive environment and the careful design and characterization of the visual stimuli to avoid malfunctions and erroneous interpretations of collected experimental data.

The psychophysical studies aim to understand the framework implied on the biological motion perception. The role of the dorsal and ventral visual cortex streams in biological motion detection and recognition, the nature of the representation level of the motion agent, the nature of the interaction observer - other agents – environment influence, cross-modal auditory visual integration and selective categorical attention phenomena will be studied.

Starting with the traditional point light walker stimulus, we will manipulate structural complexity of the motion agent, maintaining the global translational components. Then, by using different methodologies (from psychophysics to immersive reality tasks) we will focus on the role of environment and motor schemes. The tasks of computational vision modelling and biologically inspired electronic design overlap in time with the psychophysical studies, because it is essential the research teams interact to achieve the goals of the project.

Furthermore, this project will profit from and contribute to the setting and development of facilities supported by the last national scientific re-equipment program of FCT, namely: a) the re-equipment for Visualization Systems at the University of Minho (REEQ/821/PSI/2005); b) the re-equipment for Local and Remote Servers for Biomedical Image Analysis and Computational Vision at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering (REEQ/738/EEI/2005) and c) the National Network for Functional Brain Imaging involving the Universities of Aveiro, Coimbra, Minho and Porto.

People / Institutions

Miguel Velhote Correia, Jorge Almeida Santos, Miguel Castelo-Branco, Vítor Grade Tavares, Aurélio Campilho, Sérgio Nascimento, André Teixeira Puga, Adérito Fernandes Marcos, Aldina Aragonês da Conceição, Pedro Guedes de Oliveira, Sandra Mouta, Ana Catarina Mendonça, Paulo Noriega Machado, Bruno Aragão Henriques, Hugo Gonçalves.

Participating Institutions: Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores do Porto, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Universidade do Minho, Instituto Biomédico de Investigação de Luz e Imagem da Universidade de Coimbra, Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica.

Funding

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) – PTDC/SAU-BEB/68455/2006

Publications

2012

• Graewe B, Lemos R, Ferreira C, Santana I, Farivar R, Weerd P, Castelo-Branco M Impaired processing of 3D motion-defined faces in MCI and healthy ageing: an fMRI study, Cerebral Cortex [Epub August 9, 2012] doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs246
• Graewe B, de Weerd P, Farivar R, Castelo-Branco M. Stimulus Dependency of Object-evoked Responses in Human Visual Cortex: An Inverse Problem for Category Specificity PLoS ONE 2012 7(2): e30727
• Mouta S, Santos JA, López-Moliner J. Time-to-passage of biological and complex motion. Journal of Vision, 12(2):21, 1-14 (2012 Feb 27). doi: 10.1167/12.2.21.
• Hugo Gonçalves, Vitor Tavares, Miguel V. Correia, Contrast sensitive photosensor with compressed adaptation current, accepted for presentation at 42nd European Solid-State Device Research Conference & 38th European Solid-State Circuits Conference, Bordeaux, France, September 17-21.
• Ana Catarina Mendonça. Audiovisual Perception of Biological Motion (PhD thesis), Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal.

2011

• Mouta S, Santos J. Percepção de velocidade do movimento: mais resistente ao fenómeno de interferência? Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas), 28(4), pp. 475-488.
• Mendonça C, Santos JA, López-Moliner J. The benefit of multisensory integration with biological motion signals. Experimental Brain Research, 213(2-3):185-192. Springer-Verlag (Epub 2011 Mar 19). doi: 10.1007/s00221-011-2620-4.
• Magalhães F, Araújo FM, Correia MV, Abolbashari M, Farahi F. Active illumination single-pixel camera based on compressive sensing. Applied Optics, 50(4):405-414, Optical Society of America (2011 Feb 1). doi: 10.1364/AO.50.000405.
• Mouta S, López-Moliner J, Santos JA. Uncertainty in estimating time-to-passage revealed by reaction times. 34th European Conference on Visual Perception, 28 August - 1 September, Toulouse, France. Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 226.
• Oliveira M, Mendonça C, Santos JA. The effect of rhythmic auditory cues over stepping frequency on a treadmill. 4th Iberian Conference in Perception, 6-8 July, Palma de Mallorca. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p.35.
• Mendonça C, Santos JA, Campos G, P. Dias P, Vieira P. On the human adaptation to non-individualized HRTF-based sounds: A longitudinal study. 4th Iberian Conference in Perception, 6-8 July, Palma de Mallorca. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p.30.
• Mouta S, Aragão B, Fontes L, Santos JA, Soares E, Correia MV. From human motion capture to biological motion visualization: a new methodology. 4th Iberian Conference on Perception, 6-8 July, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p.29.
• Santos JA, Silva C, Mendonça C. Motion in depth: audiovisual synchrony perception of walkers as a function of distance and depth cues. 4th Iberian Conference in Perception, 6-8 July, Palma de Mallorca. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p.10.
• Castelhano J, Direito B, Graewe B, Rebola J, Farivar R, Rodriguez E, Castelo-Branco M. Support vector machine classification of perceptual states as indexed by Gamma-band activity. 17th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping - HBM 2011, Quebec, Canada, June 2011.
• Bernardino I, Castelhano J, Farivar R, Castelo-Branco M. Abnormal visual dorsal stream processing and 3D face perception in a neurodevelopmental disorder. 17th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping - HBM 2011, Quebec, Canada, June 2011.
• Yuxi Chen, Quelhas P, Campilho A. Low frame rate cell tracking: A Delaunay graph matching approach. Biomedical Imaging: From Nano to Macro, 2011 IEEE International Symposium on, vol., no., pp.1015-1018, March 30 2011-April 2. doi: 10.1109/ISBI.2011.5872573

2010

• Noriega P, Santos JA. Optical flow and road environments: Implications for ergonomic road design. In D. B. Kaber & G. Boy (Eds.), Advances in Cognitive Ergonomics. Advances in Human Factors and Ergonomics Series (pp. 440-449). Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
• Mendonça C, Santos JA. A bi-estabilidade nas representações de movimento humano a partir de estímulos visuais e auditivos. Análise Psicológica, 2, 321-331 (ISSN: 0870-8231).
• Mouta S, Santos JA, López-Moliner J. Combination of image expansion and known size explains time-to- passage of biological motion. 33rd European Conference on Visual Perception, 22-26 August 2010, Lausanne, Switzerland. Perception 39 ECVP Abstract Supplement, p 20.
• Graewe B, Farivar R, de Weerd P, Castelo-Branco M. The MT complex is modulated by temporal and depth saliency of Structure-From-Motion objects. 16th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona, Spain, June 2010.
• Castelo-Branco M, Kozak LR, Formisano E, Goebel R. Attention dependent default mode hippocampal deactivation and dissociation from striatal networks. 16th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona, Spain, June 2010.
• Rebola J, Castelhano J, Ferreira C, Castelo-Branco M. Separating the sensory, perceptual and motor components of visual decision making. 16th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona, Spain, June 2010.
• Castelhano J, Rebola, Rodriguez E, Castelo-Branco M. Gamma-band activity is related to perceptual Eureka effect when observing ambiguous dynamic figures. 16th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Barcelona, Spain, June 2010.
• Mendonça C, Santos JA, Lopez-Moliner J. Audiovisual walkers are perceived optimally. 11th International Multisensory Research Forum, 16-19 June 2010, Liverpool, UK.
• Gonçalves H, Correia MV. A model of primate photoreceptors. Biosignals 2010, International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing, Valencia, Spain, 20-23 January 2010, pp. 277-283.
• Mendonça C, Santos JA, Castelo-Branco M, Lopez-Moliner J. Maximum Likelihood predicts velocity integration of audiovisual walkers. 5o Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental, 26-27 Março 2010, Braga, Portugal.
• Aragão B, Santos JA. Especificidades do movimento biológico: análise dos padrões de aceleração. 5o Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental, 26-27 Março 2010. Braga, Portugal.
• Mendonça AC, Santos JA, Castelo-Branco M. Maximum likelihood predicts optimal integration of audiovisual walkers. 5o Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia Experimental, 26-27 Março 2010, Braga, Portugal.
• Aquisição e Construção de Estímulos de Movimento Biológico. Technical Research Report. Laboratory of Visualization and Perception, Universidade do Minho.
• Vicon2Biomose guide. Technical Research Report. Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto.
• WinBiomose guide. Technical Research Report. Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto.
• Protocol to Calibrate in Colour and Luminance the CAVE Projection System. Technical Research Report. Centro de Física, Universidade do Minho.
• Paulo Noriega, Efeitos da complexidade ambiental sobre a discriminação de veículos, Dissertação de Doutoramento em Motricidade Humana-Ergonomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Lisboa, Portugal.

2009

• Castelo-Branco M, Kozak LR, Formisano E, Teixeira J, Xavier J, Goebel R. The type of featural attention differentially modulates hMT responses to illusory motion aftereffects. J Neurophysiology 2009.
• Kozak LR, Castelo-Branco M. Peripheral influences on motion integration in foveal vision are modulated by central local ambiguity and center-surround congruence. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2009, 50(2):980-8.
• Aragão B, Mendonça C, Fontes L, Santos JA. Temporal sampling in the perception of biological motion. 32nd European Conference on Visual Perception, 24-28 August 2009, Regensburg, Germany. Perception 38 ECVP Abstract Supplement, p. 84.
• Aragão B, Fontes L, Pereira E, Santos JA, Soares E, Correia MV. Translational biological motion stimuli for perceptual research. 3rd Iberian Conference on Perception, 8-10 July 2009, Guimarães, Portugal. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p. 2.
• Santos JA, Mendonça C, Murteira C, Ferreira JP, Dias P, Campos G. Learning to listen through another person ́s ears: a study of learning curves using non-individualized hear-related transfer functions. 3rd Iberian Conference on Perception, pp. 73, 8-10 July 2009, Guimarães, Portugal. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p. 7.
• Santos JA, Mouta S, Mendonça C, Ferreira J. Multimodal perception and action in biological motion. 3rd Iberian Conference on Perception, 8-10 July 2009, Guimarães, Portugal. Spanish Journal of Psychology CIP Abstract Supplement, p. 2.
• Mendonça C, Santos AS, Castelo-Branco M. Does maximum likelihood integration predict how we perceive walking humans? A study on the audiovisual integration of biological motion. 10th International Multisensory Research Forum, 28 June - 2 July 2009, New York City, USA.
• Hugo Gonçalves. Biologically Inspired Motion Chips. Technical Research Report. Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto.
• Sandra Mouta, Translational biological motion: speed perception, time-to-contact and time-to-passage estimations (PhD thesis), Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal.

2008

• Mendonça C, Santos JA. Auditory footsteps affect visual biological motion orientation detection. 31st European Conference of Visual Perception, 24-28 August 2008, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Perception 37 ECVP Abstract Supplement, p. 109.
• Mouta S, Santos JA. The role of (other or self-) reference in the perception of expanding biological motion. 31st European Conference of Visual Perception, 24-28 August 2008. Utrecht, The Netherlands. Perception 37 ECVP Abstract Supplement, p. 156.
• Mendonça AC, Santos JA. Auditory footsteps affect visual biological motion orientation detection. 9th International Multisensory Research Forum, 16-19 July 2008, Hamburg, Germany.
• Santos JA, Mendonça C. Integração de som auralizado num sistema de realidade virtual. 10o Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Engenharia do Ambiente. Lisboa, Portugal.