Properties of the recombination of one-dimensional motion signals into a pattern motion signal

Abstract

We have examined the human ability to determine the direction of movement of a variety of plaid patterns. The plaids were composed of two orthogonal sine-wave gratings. When the plaid components are of unequal spatial frequency or sometimes of unequal contrast, observers judge the direction of movement incorrectly. In terms of the two-stage model of Adelson and Movshon (1982), these errors may result from either a misjudgment in the perceived speeds of each of the components or a failure in the combination of one-dimensional-component movements into a coherent direction of motion of the two-dimensional plaid pattern, or both. A comparison of the perceived direction of motion of plaids with the relative perceived-speeds of the plaid component gratings suggests that both failures occur, but in different circumstances The relative perceived speed of the plaid components was measured with a spatial and a temporal forced-choice technique, the former leading to larger differences. Our results support the notion that the visual system decomposes a moving plaid into oriented components and subsequently recombines the component motions. © 1992 Psychonomic Society, Inc.