Abstract
A stimulus' disappearance can be perceived to be caused by occlusion or by the stimulus simply being gone. Demonstrations of dynamic occlusion, such as Michotte's tunnel effect, traditionally have included motion, with the implication that motion may be a necessary ingredient. Here I demonstrate dynamic occlusion percepts that do not include motion. In these new phenomena, when part of an object is replaced with another, the second object appears to be in front, even when there are no static cues to the occlusion. The missing part of the first object is amodally completed through time. This completion has perceptual consequences. One is that the part that disappears will not match with a displaced copy to create apparent motion, as the disappeared part is perceived to still be in the same location, but occluded. Line motion is also affected: the perception of line motion is eliminated when the line's disappearance is attributed to occlusion. The existence of the dynamic but motionless cue to occlusion suggests that researchers should place less emphasis on the role of motion mechanisms in recovering occlusion relationships. In a new line of research, this cue is used to manipulate whether items presented in rapid serial fashion are perceived to be continually present. Ongoing RSVP experiments explore the effect on temporal thresholds for the perception of individual items and their order.