Visual interactions in the path of apparent motion

Abstract

When two stationary visual objects appear in alternating sequence, they evoke the perception of a single object moving back and forth between them. This is known as stroboscopic or apparent motion and forms the basis of perceived continuity in, for example, motion pictures. When the spatiotemporal separation between the inducing objects is optimal, the subjective appearance of apparent motion is nearly indistinguishable from that of real motion. Here we report that the detection and identification of a simple visual form in the path of apparent motion is impaired by the illusory perception of an object moving through the empty space between the locations at which the inducing objects are presented. This observation may be a manifestation of perceptual completion or 'filling in' during apparent motion perception. We propose that feedback from higher to lower visual cortical areas activates an explicit neural representation of a moving object, which can then disrupt the representation of visual stimuli in the path of the movement.

Inhibition of return to occluded objects

“…The probe might be masked by the persisting representation of the occluded object in Experiment 3. Consider motion masking (Yantis & Nakama, 1998), in which the discrimination of a target was delayed when it was perceived to appear on the path of perceived apparent motion. As such, motion masking predicts slowed responses in the object condition, because the probe appears along the path of motion.…”

Perceptual Continuity and the Emergence of Perceptual Persistence in the Ventral Visual Pathway

“…For example, a camouflaged animal might not be noticed until it moves, but once it has moved, it becomes clearly visible, and can remain so when it resumes a fixed position. A number of psychophysical experiments have investigated phenomena related to perceptual continuity such as perceptual hysteresis for bistable stimuli (Hock et al 1993;Leopold et al 2002;Maier et al 2003;Sekuler 1996;Suzuki and Peterson 2000;Williams et al 1986;Yantis and Nakama 1998). However, the neural processes that underlie perceptual continuity are not well understood.…”

Attentional trade-offs maintain the tracking of moving objects across saccades

“…Using a variety of behavioral measures, including localization performance (Shioiri et al 2000), visual sensitivity (Shioiri et al 2002;Atsma et al 2012), and deviations in saccade direction (Barborica and Ferrera 2004), these studies show that covert visual attention is deployed not only to the moving object's current position but also along its predicted future path (Fig. 1B;Shioiri et al 2000Shioiri et al , 2002Atsma et al 2012; but see Yantis and Nakama 1998). Although the execution of saccades modifies the projections of objects onto the retina, preventing saccadic eye movements during object tracking appears to impair performance (Intriligator and Cavanagh 2001).…”