Hand position alters vision by biasing processing through different visual pathways

The present study investigated the mechanisms responsible for the difference between visual processing of stimuli near and far from the observer’s hands. The idea that objects near the hands are immediate candidates for action led us to hypothesize that vision near the hands would be biased toward the action-oriented magnocellular visual pathway that supports processing with high temporal resolution but low spatial resolution. Conversely, objects away from the hands are not immediate candidates for action and, therefore, would benefit from a bias toward the perception-oriented parvocellular visual pathway that supports processing with high spatial resolution but low temporal resolution. We tested this hypothesis based on the psychophysical characteristics of the two pathways. Namely, we presented subjects with two tasks: a temporal-gap detection task which required the high temporal acuity of the magnocellular pathway and a spatial-gap detection task that required the spatial acuity of the parvocellular pathway. Consistent with our prediction, we found better performance on the temporal-gap detection task and worse performance on the spatial-gap detection task when stimuli were presented near the hands compared to when they were far from the hands. These findings suggest that altered visual processing near the hands may be due to changes in the contribution of the two visual pathways.