Pursuing the perceptual rather than the retinal stimulus

Abstract In the first experiment, subjects were able to successfully track a perceptually completed contour that was extrapolated from peripheral retinal information. In the second experiment, subjects successfully pursued an object that moved horizontally behind a narrow slit in such a way that the only visible stimuli were the edges of the object moving vertically in the slit. In the third experiment, subjects successfully tracked the invisible center of a rolling wheel when all that could be seen were points of light travelling in a cycloidal path on the rim of the wheel. It is argued that the stimulus for pursuit eye movements is the appreciation of an object in motion with respect to the observer, regardless of the retinal stimulation, and in some cases regardless of the sense modality through which the motion is detected.

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