How does centre-periphery organization help the visual system detect moving objects?

The centre-periphery organization of receptive fields is a fundamental mechanism that allows the visual system to prioritize significant information, such as moving objects, while filtering out uniform, uninteresting stimuli.1

In this arrangement, the centre and periphery of the receptive field exhibit antagonism, meaning that stimulation of one region typically inhibits the response of the other. When the retina is illuminated uniformly, the excitatory and inhibitory signals tend to cancel each other out, resulting in little to no response from the lateral geniculate neurons. This process spares the brain from being overwhelmed by redundant, uniform visual data.21

Conversely, a moving object or a contour creates non-uniformity across the receptive field, disrupting this cancellation and triggering a neural response. By emphasizing these contrasts, the visual system effectively highlights movement, which is often a critical signal for survival. In higher animals, this initial retinal processing is complemented by more complex movement-detector cells in the visual cortex that are specifically tuned to the direction and speed of moving stimuli.134