Perception of Motion in Statistically-Defined Displays
Abstract
This project used statistically-complex displays to probe higher- orders of human motion perception. The project's overall aim was to establish the characteristics of human visual mechanisms that extract information from these and other displays. A fundamental contribution was the systematic refinement and extension of a model in which motion information is extracted and processed, via non-linear interactions, by directionally-selective visual mechanisms. Prior work has shown that a percept of global coherent motion can be produced from the combination of many different, localized motion vectors. Using random-dot cinematograms, we established that hysteresis is strongly associated with such percepts. It was previously found that practice seemed to produce direction-selective improvement in observers' ability to discriminate between highly similar directions of motion. Investigators clarified the basis for this improvement by recording an observers eye movements while they target motion. Investigators also created random-dot cinematograms in which each dot's successive movements were independently drawn from a Gaussian distribution of directions of some characteristic bandwidth. Such displays, comprising many different, spatially intermingled local motion vectors, can produce a percept of global coherent motion in a single direction. Keywords: motion visual perception; Math models; Statistical displays; Cinematograms.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 15, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA208695
Entities
People
- Robert Sekuler
Organizations
- Northwestern University