Abstract
Object motion perception depends on the integration of form and motion information into a unified neural representation. Historically, form and motion perception are thought to be independent processes; however, research demonstrates that these processes interact in numerous and complex ways. For example, an object’s orientation relative to its direction of motion will influence its perceived speed (Georges, Seriès, Frégnac and Lorenceau, 2002). Here we investigated whether this local form-motion interaction influences global form processing. In experiment 1, we replicated the effect of orientation dependent modulation of speed. In experiment 2, we investigated whether the perceived speed of local elements could influence the perceived shape of a global object constructed from grouping of those elements. Results indicated that the orientation of local elements indeed influenced the perceived shape of a global object. We propose that inputs from local form-motion processes are one of perhaps many neural mechanisms underlying global form integration.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012