Document Detail


The detectability of geometric structure in rapidly changing optical patterns.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  1771135     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Human vision is sensitive to the coherent structure and motion of simple dot patterns undergoing rapid random transformations, even when the component dots are widely separated spatially. A study is reported in which visual sensitivity to translations, rotations, expansions, pure shear, and additive combinations of these transformations was investigated. Observers discriminated between coherent (correlated) movements, in which all the component dots moved simultaneously in corresponding directions and distances, and incoherent (uncorrelated) movements, in which the movements of individual dots were statistically independent. In experiment 1 the accuracy of coherence discrimination was found to be similar for all four of the basic transformations and to increase linearly with the distance of the movements. The discriminability of coherent versus incoherent motion was also found to be similar to the detectability of any motion, suggesting that concurrent movements of individual dots are visually interrelated. In experiments 2 and 3 the visual independence of these four groups of transformations was tested by comparing the accuracy of coherence discrimination of each of the transformations presented alone with that when added to background motions produced by each of the four transformations. Coherence discriminations were less accurate when the target transformation was added to another background transformation, indicating that these transformations are not visually independent. Rotations and expansions, however, were visually independent. In experiment 3 qualitatively similar effects for patterns of several different sizes and dot densities were found. In general, an impressive visual sensitivity to globally coherent structure and motion under several different geometric transformations was observed in these experiments. A basic theoretical issue concerns the local visual mechanisms underlying this sensitivity.
Authors:
J S Lappin; J F Norman; L Mowafy
Related Documents :
22378385 - Surface plasmon-waveguide hybrid polymer light-emitting devices using hexagonal ag dots.
16505065 - Paragraph text reading using a pixelized prosthetic vision simulator: parameter depende...
9763645 - Necessity of acetylcholine for retinal directionally selective responses to drifting gr...
20377295 - Curvature coding is tuned for motion direction.
15268915 - Alpha rhythm of the eeg modulates visual detection performance in humans.
20730435 - Active wall following by mexican blind cavefish (astyanax mexicanus).
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Perception     Volume:  20     ISSN:  0301-0066     ISO Abbreviation:  Perception     Publication Date:  1991  
Date Detail:
Created Date:  1992-02-27     Completed Date:  1992-02-27     Revised Date:  2007-11-14    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0372307     Medline TA:  Perception     Country:  ENGLAND    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  513-28     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240.
Export Citation:
APA/MLA Format     Download EndNote     Download BibTex
MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Depth Perception
Form Perception*
Humans
Motion Perception*
Space Perception*
Grant Support
ID/Acronym/Agency:
EY-05926/EY/NEI NIH HHS; P30EY08126/EY/NEI NIH HHS; T32EY07007/EY/NEI NIH HHS

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


Previous Document:  A microgenetic study of the Müller-Lyer illusion.
Next Document:  Looking for a structural network: effects of changing size and style on letter recognition.