Abstract

Recently, many studies on perceived direction of motion have involved stimuli in which the bias in the perceived direction of motion is greater in the periphery than in the fovea. We have developed a stimulus for which the converse is true. Yet the results of this study can be explained by a model that also explains the results of previous work on the perception of direction of motion. The stimulus consists of a vertically moving pattern of dark and light vertical bars, that are phase shifted at regular intervals to create a texture boundary. This phase shift line can be at various orientations. In the fovea, observers perceived motion that was nearly perpendicular to the phase shift line, whereas in the periphery, the perception was much closer to the true direction of motion. For a pattern with a phase shift line at 45°, the mean bias for three subjects was 40.9° in the fovea and 20.1° in the periphery.

© 1991 Optical Society of America