Evidence for reciprocal antagonism between motion sensors tuned to coarse and fine features.

Early visual processing analyses fine and coarse image features separately. Here we show that motion signals derived from fine and coarse analyses are combined in rather a surprising way: Coarse and fine motion sensors representing the same direction of motion inhibit one another and an imbalance can reverse the motion perceived. Observers judged the direction of motion of patches of filtered two-dimensional noise, centered on 1 and 3 cycles/deg. When both sets of noise were present and only the 3 cycles/deg noise moved, judgments were reversed at short durations. When both sets of noise moved, judgments were correct but sensitivity was impaired. Reversals and impairments occurred both with isotropic noise and with orientation-filtered noise. The reversals and impairments could be simulated in a model of motion sensing by adding a stage in which the outputs of motion sensors tuned to 1 and 3 cycles/deg and the same direction of motion were subtracted from one another. The subtraction model predicted and we confirmed in experiments with orientation-filtered noise that if the 1 cycle/deg noise flickered and the 3 cycles/deg noise moved, the 1 cycle/deg noise appeared to move in the opposite direction to the 3 cycles/deg noise even at long durations.

[1]  A. M. Derrington,et al.  Errors in direction-of-motion discrimination with dichoptically viewed stimuli , 1993, Vision Research.

[2]  S. Shimojo,et al.  Modulation of motion aftereffect by surround motion and its dependence on stimulus size and eccentricity , 1995, Vision Research.

[3]  A. Derrington,et al.  Failure of motion discrimination at high contrasts: Evidence for saturation , 1989, Vision Research.

[4]  A. Reinhardt-Rutland,et al.  Induced movement in the visual modality: an overview. , 1988, Psychological bulletin.

[5]  A. Derrington,et al.  Direction-of-motion discrimination with complex patterns: further observations. , 1988, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[6]  Dennis M. Levi,et al.  Spatial and velocity tuning of processes underlying induced motion , 1984, Vision Research.

[7]  David C. Burr,et al.  Receptive field properties of human motion detector units inferred from spatial frequency masking , 1989, Vision Research.

[8]  Edward H. Adelson,et al.  The extraction of Spatio-temporal Energy in Human and Machine Vision , 1997 .

[9]  A J Ahumada,et al.  Model of human visual-motion sensing. , 1985, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[10]  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.

[11]  Y. Ejima,et al.  Dependencies of Motion Assimilation and Motion Contrast on Spatial Properties of Stimuli: Spatial-frequency Nonselective and Selective Interactions Between Local Motion Detectors , 1997, Vision Research.

[12]  D G Pelli,et al.  The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: transforming numbers into movies. , 1997, Spatial vision.

[13]  V. Ramachandran,et al.  Motion capture anisotropy , 1987, Vision Research.

[14]  D. Broadbent,et al.  Some experiments bearing on the hypothesis that the visual system analyses spatial patterns in independent bands of spatial frequency , 1975, Vision Research.

[15]  D H Brainard,et al.  The Psychophysics Toolbox. , 1997, Spatial vision.

[16]  D. Burr,et al.  Two-dimensional spatial and spatial-frequency selectivity of motion-sensitive mechanisms in human vision. , 1991, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[17]  A. Watson.  Probability summation over time , 1979, Vision Research.

[18]  David R. Badcock,et al.  Detecting the displacement of periodic patterns , 1985, Vision Research.

[19]  D. Regan,et al.  Visual processing of four kinds of relative motion , 1986, Vision Research.

[20]  D. Regan,et al.  Figure-ground segregation by motion contrast and by luminance contrast. , 1984, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[21]  I. Serrano-Pedraza,et al.  The Effect of White-Noise Mask Level on Sinewave Contrast Detection Thresholds and the Critical-Band-Masking Model , 2006, The Spanish Journal of Psychology.

[22]  H. Wilson,et al.  Moving two-dimensional patterns can capture the perceived directions of lower or higher spatial frequency gratings , 1992, Vision Research.

[23]  D. Burr,et al.  Receptive field size of human motion detection units , 1987, Vision Research.

[24]  D. Burr,et al.  Spatial summation properties of directionally selective mechanisms in human vision. , 1991, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[25]  G. J. Burton,et al.  Evidence for non-linear response processes in the human visual system from measurements on the thresholds of spatial beat frequencies. , 1973, Vision research.

[26]  Andrew M. Derrington,et al.  Errors in direction-of-motion discrimination with complex stimuli , 1987, Vision Research.