An attentional pointer account of motion correspondence E Hein1, C M Moore2, P Cavanagh3 |
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1Evolutionary cognition, University of Tübingen, Germany |
| How does the visual system construct stable object representations when the input is ambiguous and the retinal image changes as objects and viewer move? To investigate this, we used the Ternus display, in which three elements are presented in alternation in two consecutive frames, shifted by one position from one frame to the next. This display can be perceived as one element jumping across the other two and sometimes as all three elements moving together as a group, depending on how correspondence between the elements across the two displays is resolved. Low-level retinotopic mechanisms have been proposed to explain perception in the Ternus display. Output of short-range motion detectors or visual persistence determine between which elements motion appears, and as a consequence how correspondence is resolved. Recent studies, however, have shown that higher-level factors also influence correspondence in the Ternus display. These include the degree of similarity between elements, perceived size and lightness, visual short-term memory, attention, and even lexical information. Moreover, the reference frame of these effects seems to be non-retinotopic. We propose that the establishment of correspondence relies on object-based attentional pointers that determine correspondence based on perceived similarity/togetherness of the elements and then assigns motion accordingly. |
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