# Project 8: Role of Motor Signals for Perception During Self-Motion

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO · 2020 · $319

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT 
Role of Motor Signals for Perception during Self-Motion 
Sensing and reconstructing self-motion is essential for normal everyday function of most mobile organisms. In 
humans, visual and vestibular systems provide valuable sensory information for self-motion processing, but 
motor signals also contribute. In particular, oculomotor, neck-motor, and locomotor signals provide information 
about movement of the eye in the head, the head on the body, and the body through space. These signals 
serve multiple purposes: they allow transforming sensory estimates between eye, head and body reference 
frames; they can be used to calibrate sensory signals; and once signals are calibrated, they can be integrated 
to yield improved sensory-motor estimates of self-motion. Research proposed here will advance our 
understanding of these sensory-motor interactions during self-motion in the context of the following specific 
aims. Aim 1 is to characterize principles of sensory-motor comparison and adaptation for head movements. 
Sensory-motor conflict will be introduced by rotating the body under the head during active head turns to 
introduce a mismatch between the predicted and observed vestibular sensory signal. Perceptual sensitivity to 
the conflict and rate of adaptation to the perturbed signal will be measured and compared with predictions of a 
probabilistic model. Aim 2 is to examine how retinal speed signals are combined with eye and head movement 
signals to estimate object motion in the world. Prior psychophysics and modeling work has shown that 
perceived speed is reduced during pursuit and passive head movement, suggesting reduced perceptual gain 
on eye movement and vestibular signals. This project will extend these approaches to investigate the role of 
neck-motor signals during active head movement and interactions among neck-motor, oculomotor and 
vestibular signals. Aim 3 is to measure and model impact of locomotor signals on perceptual thresholds. This 
project will test the hypothesis that previously observed suppression of vestibular signals during locomotion 
depends on head movement variability, and thus reliability of locomotor efference copy signals. Head 
movement variability will be measured and used to predict locomotion-induced changes in perceptual 
sensitivity to vestibular and other sensory stimuli during different speeds and at different time points during 
walking on a treadmill. 
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9984413
- **Project number:** 5P20GM103650-09
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO
- **Principal Investigator:** PAUL RYAN MACNEILAGE
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $319
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9984413

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9984413, Project 8: Role of Motor Signals for Perception During Self-Motion (5P20GM103650-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9984413. Licensed CC0.

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