Abstract
The Transcendental Psychology approach claims that internal mechanisms of perceptual processes may be manifested at the limit of human visual system functional range in critical spatial-temporal conditions. It therefore focuses on the way how the visual representations are created over time and seeks for phenomena which can provide important cues to the spatial and temporal properties of the representation process, e.g. showing theoretically supposed differences in perception of shortly presented dilating (A) and contracting (B) objects (Artemenkov, VSS, 2005). To get deeper understanding of these differences we have investigated the visual perception of simultaneous A and B objects by presenting contoured polygons changing size (7–12 deg) at the rate of 10–55 deg/s within a range of short durations (30–120 ms), and asking observers to identify object's form, size and movement. The results confirm that for A and B objects changing place of each other (7 and 12 deg) simultaneously or with small delay (10–40 ms) the processes are masking each other's movement sensation and this effect is better manifested at the lower movement's speed (18 deg/s) and is even more salient when A and B speeds are different (35 and 18 deg/s). While bifurcated objects show the noticeable absence of their initial state, merged objects were perceived differently at high and low speeds, so that at low speed they are seen as visually distinct, as if they are terminated at different depth planes. Discovered phenomena support a theoretical model predicting internal anisotropic properties of the representation process.