Abstract
People have the ability to combine both object identity and location information to function in the real world. Many studies found that object location can influence object identity judgments via facilitation and binding effects. Objects in the same location can lead to reaction time priming and enhanced sensitivity. Also, participants are more likely to judge two objects represented sequentially as the same identity if they appeared in the same location (spatial congruency bias). However, most of these studies used stationary objects in their tasks. How do these findings extend to objects in motion? While a few studies focused on whether object-location binding updates when an object moves, the objects in these studies were encoded while stationary and then moved during the delay before test. How does location influence identity judgments when the initial object is moving? In the current study, we modified the ‘Spatial congruency bias’ paradigm. The first stimulus emerged from behind an occluder and moved at a constant speed from initial appearance until disappearance (passing behind another occluder). The second stimulus then appeared (still moving) from either the predictable location along the occluded spatiotemporal trajectory (predictable trajectory), from the same initial location (same exact trajectory), or from an entirely different location (different trajectory). Subjects had to judge whether the two stimuli were the same or different identity. We found a significant spatial congruency bias (object-location binding) for both the same exact and predictable trajectories, compared to the different trajectory. There was also a significant increase in d-prime (facilitation) at same exact trajectory. These results suggests that a moving object’s location can influence object identity judgements in multiple ways. These findings of facilitation and object-location binding effects of a moving object are crucial for understanding how the brain achieves visual perception in a dynamic world.