Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionMay 11, 2020 |
|---|
|
PONE-D-20-13933 Closed loop motor-sensory dynamics in human vision PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ahissar, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Both reviewers raised substantive but addressable concerns about the methods, data reliability, clarity of exposition, and some of the interpretations -- although I think we all agree it is a clever and technically impressive contribution to an interesting topic. Some additional specific comments I have: (1) I agree with Reviewer 2 that some of the reasoning could be spelled out better. It could be that the reviewers (and editor) lack some of the technical understanding and familiarity with the terminology used by the authors. However, if this is the case then certainly many readers will have similar confusion. For instance, it is stated that “saccades and drifts fully characterize the movements of the eyes during all kinds of visual activities including pursuing moving targets” — but smooth pursuit itself is generally described as having both open and closed-loop components, and other smooth eye movements such as optokinetic response surely depend on the incoming sensory input and thus would not be entirely open-loop. Relatedly, in Discussion: “…our results demonstrate clearly that ocular drifts are actively controlled by the visual system. What our results add is that this control is part of a motor-sensory closed-loop process” — I guess I’m wondering, how could it be otherwise? It’s not made clear to the general systems neuroscience reader how the visual system could actively control ocular drifts without it being a motor-sensory closed loop process. (2) I don’t understand figure 2 and associated text (neither, apparently, did Reviewer 1). It is stated that the current data “show higher values than those typically reported in the literature (40).” But then the next sentence starts “To verify that our recordings *did not* yield higher drifts speeds than those previously reported,” — how can both be true? In the figure, the black curve is stated to be the ‘same distribution’ as previously reported, but how are we to evaluate this claim when the previously reported distribution is not shown? Overall, the details of this comparison with previous work should be spelled out more clearly. (3) Reviewer 1 also raises a number of concerns about statistical power, measurement noise, and the saccade thresholds, among other methods choices. Some or all of these may need to be addressed not only in the rebuttal but in the manuscript as well. (4) The journal’s Data Availability requirements (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability) have not yet been fully met. The submission form states “Important: Stating ‘data available on request from the author’ is not sufficient. If your data are only available upon request, select ‘No’ for the first question and explain your exceptional situation in the text box.” The journal strongly recommends deposition of data in an appropriate public repository. If this cannot be done, a statement of availability upon request can be made, but authors must “identify the group to which requests should be submitted (e.g., a named data access committee or named ethics committee).” Also, “The reasons for restrictions on public data deposition must also be specified.” Minor: -Fig 3a has no ordinate label. -Fig 4a: brackets and asterisks are all all over the place. -The embedded figures are rendered with rather poor resolution and in several places are almost impossible to read. The reason for this becomes clear when zooming into the attached .PNG files, which themselves, although readable, are not particularly high-res. If this can be remedied in subsequent revision(s) — ideally by using a vector graphics format, but at least just notching up the resolution — the authors and editor would be most grateful. Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 04 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Christopher R. Fetsch Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For more information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors demonstrate that drift operates—in part—in a closed-loop manner, dependent on concurrent visual input. I think the work is interesting and meaningful, and I am largely convinced of the conclusions. However, the number of participants and trials is quite low, and the saccade thresholds may have been adjusted in response to the low amount of data, in a way that might include some saccadic movements in the drift dynamics. The data are available upon request, rather than being made fully available in a public repository. Only five subjects were included in the study, and there were only ~10 trials per session. This study might be underpowered as a result, particularly for determining whether effects are consistent across people. How were the number of subjects and number of trials determined? Was a power analysis conducted? It is unclear how statements like “most of the individual subjects” (line 357) should be interpreted, when even one subject showing a different pattern would be 20% of the sample, and when a sixth or seventh participant might display markedly different behavior. Why were the threshold parameters used here so different from those used in previous work? An explanation is not provided. Were these thresholds used because there was insufficient data (as a result of the low number of trials and participants)? The threshold values used seem like they would consider more samples to be drift, and fewer to be saccades. The text describes manual verification of detected saccades, but does not indicate that the drift data was examined for potential saccades that were not detected. The higher values in drift speed may reflect the inadvertent inclusion of saccadic movements. If so, some of the evidence demonstrating that drift is a closed-loop process may be the result of saccadic movements and not drift. These simple shape stimuli differ substantially from photorealistic images. It seems entirely possible that drift changes in response to increased information (natural vs tunneled viewing) only when the information is very sparse to begin with, and drift may not change under more realistic conditions. A more ecologically-valid task might reveal very different results. The possibility that the results in the current study may be stimulus-dependent is not discussed. The possibility of open-loop changes to drift (e.g., as a result of fatigue) are disregarded in the discussion, although the current study does not rule out open-loop components (especially in longer tasks or natural non-laboratory viewing tasks). Lines 125-135: The distributions in Fig 2 do not appear identical, and no statistical test is shown to demonstrate that these distributions match, but they are described as having the same distribution. Minor comments: Line 88-89: It is unclear whether the provided values refer to the image sizes for large and small shapes or to the window sizes in those conditions. The image and window sizes are described as having a similar ratio, but it is not clear what that ratio is. Line 377: How much were subjects paid for their participation? Line 383: The screen’s refresh rate is not identical to the EyeLink’s sampling rate. It therefore seems peculiar to describe gaze contingencies as “real time”. How long were the delays between gaze samples and screen updates in this setup? Fig 3B: The border-following movements do not appear to have converged to an asymptotic value in all conditions. Lines 318-319: Why does it necessarily follow that low-level loops must involve components that are already known to control saccades and smooth pursuit movements? Could these be separate, unshared components? Reviewer #2: Gruber and Ahissar investigated if the inter-saccadic ocular drifts functioned in an open-loop manner or a closed-loop manner. Using real-time gaze-contingent display, the authors manipulated the spatial extent of incoming visual information and tested if the drift kinematics depended on these concurrent visual inputs. The reviewer has a few major comments on this study. 1. One of the main findings of this paper is the increased inter-saccadic drift speed observed in tunnel vision conditions. It is hard for the reviewer to understand how this result can be the supporting evidence for the closed-loop process in the drift. Because the saccade works in a closed-loop system, the feedback information obtained here might be used for increasing the gain of the drift. If the ocular drift itself is in a closed-loop system, it should change its kinematics depending on moment-to-moment changes of visual information during the drift. The reviewer cannot find this result from the paper (ex. Drift direction changes as a function of post-saccadic visual input. I do understand that this is technically challenging, though). It would be very helpful for the reviewer (and potentially for readers) if the authors provide a more compelling explanation for this. 2. The second point is related to the first point. The authors used a gaze-contingent display for the tunnel vision condition. Gaze-contingent visual stimulus manipulation is always a tricky business. In the paper, authors keep mentioning that the measurement noise would not be a problem because all the critical tests are from relative ones. However, the drift speed in tunnel vision condition can be severely affected by this measurement noise because the calibration error or other gaze-related error will have a substantial effect on the visual stimulus in this condition. This measurement noise in the gaze could introduce additional noise in visual stimulus, and this noise could contribute, somehow, to the overall gain increase in the drift. At least, authors should explain their eye calibration procedure in more detail (p19, 409-412), and discussed the potential problems that could be induced by the effect of measurement noise on the visual stimulus in tunnel vision condition. 3. Task difficulty problem. Even if the paper’s primary interest is on the mechanical property of the visual-motor system, other potential components should be considered and thoroughly discussed. One distinct part would be task difficulty. As the performance of the participant showed (p5, 90-92), the task seems to be very difficult in tunnel-vision small stimulus conditions. The reviewer thinks this component might have an influence on saccade and drift kinematics (for example, Supplementary figure 2a, saccade amplitude). Any difference due to this factor is more likely to be related to global changes in the system, rather than the evidence for closed-loop process in the ocular drift. 4. Relationships among Rs, Sp, and Xp. The authors suggested that the controlled relationship between these three variables would be the result of the closed-loop process. It was difficult for the reviewer to understand why. For example, why the visual system increases Rs and maintains Xp while compromising the control of Sp??? The increase of Rs and maintenance of Xp make some sense. Still, it was difficult for the reviewer to digest the rationale of CV increase in Sp (for example, Sp increase in tunnel vision condition could be simply because of measurement noise, please see the second comment). Maybe the reviewer is missing something. Please provide a more precise explanation (pages 11 – 12, lines 220 – 240). Minor comments: P 15, lines 320-321. The sentence seems to need revision. Please put the y-axis label in Figure 3a. ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 1 |
|
Closed loop motor-sensory dynamics in human vision PONE-D-20-13933R1 Dear Dr. Ahissar, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Christopher R. Fetsch Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing all the questions that the reviewer had raised. The new additions and modification of the manuscript indeed helped the reviewer to understand and appreciate the importance of the manuscript better. ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No |
| Formally Accepted |
|
PONE-D-20-13933R1 Closed loop motor-sensory dynamics in human vision Dear Dr. Ahissar: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Christopher R. Fetsch Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
Open letter on the publication of peer review reports
PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.
We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.
Learn more at ASAPbio .