Stereoscopic and contrast-defined motion in human vision

There is considerable evidence for the existence of a specialized mechanism in human vision for detecting moving contrast modulations and some evidence for a mechanism for detecting moving stereoscopic depth modulations. It is unclear whether a single second–order motion mechanism detects both types of stimulus or whether they are detected separately. We show that sensitivity to stereo–defined motion resembles that to contrast–defined motion in two important ways. First, when a missing–fundamental disparity waveform is moved in steps of 0.25 cycles, its perceived direction tends to reverse. This is a property of both luminance–defined and contrast–defined motion and is consistent with independent detection of motion at different spatial scales. Second, thresholds for detecting the direction of a smoothly drifting sinusoidal disparity modulation are much higher than those for detecting its orientation. This is a property of contrast–modulated gratings but not luminance–modulated gratings, for which the two thresholds are normally identical. The results suggest that stereo–defined and contrast–defined motion stimuli are detected either by a common mechanism or by separate mechanisms sharing a common principle of operation.

[1]  D. H. Kelly.  Motion and vision. II. Stabilized spatio-temporal threshold surface. , 1979, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[2]  S. Anstis.  The perception of apparent movement. , 1980, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[3]  Brian J. Murphy,et al.  Summation and discrimination of gratings moving in opposite directions , 1980, Vision Research.

[4]  O J Braddick,et al.  Low-level and high-level processes in apparent motion. , 1980, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[5]  Marc Green,et al.  Contrast detection and direction discrimination of drifting gratings , 1983, Vision Research.

[6]  E H Adelson,et al.  Spatiotemporal energy models for the perception of motion. , 1985, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[7]  A. Derrington,et al.  Separate detectors for simple and complex grating patterns? , 1985, Vision Research.

[8]  G. Sperling,et al.  Drift-balanced random stimuli: a general basis for studying non-Fourier motion perception. , 1988, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[9]  Mark A. Georgeson,et al.  Monocular motion sensing, binocular motion perception , 1989, Vision Research.

[10]  Delwin T. Lindsey,et al.  Motion at isoluminance: Discrimination/ detection ratios for moving isoluminant gratings , 1990, Vision Research.

[11]  Jih Jie Chang,et al.  New phenomena linking depth and luminance in stereoscopic motion , 1990, Vision Research.

[12]  P Cavanagh,et al.  Short-range vs long-range motion: not a valid distinction. , 1991, Spatial vision.

[13]  Robert Patterson,et al.  Properties of cyclopean motion perception , 1992, Vision Research.

[14]  K. T. Mullen,et al.  Absence of smooth motion perception in color vision , 1992, Vision Research.

[15]  D. Teller,et al.  Motion at isoluminance: discrimination/detection ratios and the summation of luminance and chromatic signals. , 1993, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[16]  A. Derrington,et al.  Detecting and discriminating the direction of motion of luminance and colour gratings , 1993, Vision Research.

[17]  G. Mather,et al.  Evidence for second-order motion detectors , 1993, Vision Research.

[18]  S. Nishida.  Spatiotemporal properties of motion perception for random-check contrast modulations , 1993, Vision Research.

[19]  G. Sperling,et al.  The dimensionality of texture-defined motion: a single channel theory , 1993, Vision Research.

[20]  A. T. Smith,et al.  Transparent motion from feature- and luminance-based processes , 1993, Vision Research.

[21]  T. Albright,et al.  What happens if it changes color when it moves?: Psychophysical experiments on the nature of chromatic input to motion detectors , 1993, Vision Research.

[22]  Andrew M. Derrington,et al.  Motion of chromatic stimuli: First-order or second-order? , 1994, Vision Research.

[23]  Christopher Bowd,et al.  Properties of the stereoscopic (Cyclopean) motion aftereffect , 1994, Vision Research.

[24]  Andrew T. Smith,et al.  Evidence for separate motion-detecting mechanisms for first- and second-order motion in human vision , 1994, Vision Research.

[25]  A. T. Smith,et al.  Correspondence-based and energy-based detection of second-order motion in human vision. , 1994, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[26]  G. Sperling,et al.  The functional architecture of human visual motion perception , 1995, Vision Research.

[27]  Julie M. Harris,et al.  Poor Speed Discrimination Suggests that there is No Specialized Speed Mechanism for Cyclopean Motion , 1996, Vision Research.

[28]  D. Rose,et al.  Enduring Stereoscopic Motion Aftereffects Induced by Prolonged Adaptation , 1996, Vision Research.

[29]  Robert Fox,et al.  Disparity tuning of the stereoscopic (cyclopean) motion aftereffect , 1996, Vision Research.

[30]  Peter Lennie,et al.  Spatio-temporal requirements for binocular correlation in stereopsis , 1996, Vision Research.

[31]  D. Regan,et al.  Just-noticeable difference in the speed of cyclopean motion in depth and the speed of cyclopean motion within a frontoparallel plane. , 1997, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[32]  A. Parker,et al.  Computing stereo channels from masking data , 1997, Vision Research.

[33]  D Regan,et al.  Just-noticeable difference in the speed of cyclopean motion in depth and the speed of cyclopean motion within a frontoparallel plane. , 1997, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[34]  Shin'ya Nishida,et al.  Dual multiple-scale processing for motion in the human visual System , 1997, Vision Research.

[35]  M. Nawrot,et al.  Speed Discrimination of Stereoscopic (Cyclopean) Motion , 1997, Vision Research.

[36]  ANDREW T SMITH,et al.  Separate Detection of Moving Luminance and Contrast Modulations: Fact or Artifact? , 1997, Vision Research.

[37]  A. T. Smith,et al.  Sensitivity to second-order motion as a function of temporal frequency and eccentricity , 1998, Vision Research.