Vision out of the corner of the eye

The margin of the temporal visual field lies more than 90 degrees from the line of sight and is critical for detecting incoming threats and for balance and locomotive control. We show (i) contrast sensitivity beyond 70 degrees is higher for moving stimuli than for stationary, and in the outermost region, only moving stimuli are visible; (ii) sensitivity is highest for motion in directions near the vertical and horizontal axes and is higher for forward than for backward directions; (iii) the former anisotropy arises early in the visual pathway; (iv) thresholds for discriminating direction are lowest for upward and downward motion