Temporal facilitation for moving stimuli is independent of changes in direction

A flash that is presented aligned with a moving stimulus appears to lag behind the position of the moving stimulus. This flash-lag phenomenon reflects a processing advantage for moving stimuli (Metzger, W. (1932) Psychologische Forschung 16, 176–200; MacKay, D. M. (1958) Nature 181, 507–508; Nijhawa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Vision research (Oxford) 2000-01, Vol.40 (28), p.3829-3839
Main Authors: Whitney, David, Cavanagh, Patrick, Murakami, Ikuya
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Direction change
Extrapolation
Facilitation
Flash lag
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Latency
Lighting
Male
Motion
Motion Perception - physiology
Optical Illusions
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychometrics
Reaction Time
Vision
Visual Cortex - physiology
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Summary:A flash that is presented aligned with a moving stimulus appears to lag behind the position of the moving stimulus. This flash-lag phenomenon reflects a processing advantage for moving stimuli (Metzger, W. (1932) Psychologische Forschung 16, 176–200; MacKay, D. M. (1958) Nature 181, 507–508; Nijhawan, R. (1994) Nature 370, 256–257; Purushothaman, G., Patel, S.S., Bedell, H.E., & Ogmen, H. (1998) Nature 396, 424; Whitney, D. & Murakami, I. (1998) Nature Neuroscience 1, 656–657) . The present study measures the sensitivity of the illusion to unpredictable changes in the direction of motion. A moving stimulus translated upwards and then made a 90° turn leftward or rightward. The flash-lag illusion was measured and it was found that, although the change in direction was unpredictable, the flash was still perceived to lag behind the moving stimulus at all points along the trajectory, a finding that is at odds with the extrapolation hypothesis (Nijhawan, R. (1994) Nature 370, 256–257). The results suggest that there is a shorter latency of the neural response to motion even during unpredictable changes in direction. The latency facilitation therefore appears to be omnidirectional rather than specific to a predictable path of motion (Grzywacz, N. M. & Amthor, F. R. (1993) Journal of Neurophysiology 69, 2188–2199).
ISSN:0042-6989
1878-5646
DOI:10.1016/S0042-6989(00)00225-X