Motion Adaptation Distorts Perceived Visual Position

Abstract

After an observer adapts to a moving stimulus, texture within a stationary stimulus is perceived to drift in the opposite direction—the traditional motion aftereffect (MAE). It has recently been shown that the perceived position of objects can be markedly influenced by motion adaptation [1, 2]. In the present study, we examine the selectivity of positional shifts resulting from motion adaptation to stimulus attributes such as velocity, relative contrast, and relative spatial frequency. In addition, we ask whether spatial position can be modified in the absence of perceived motion. Results show that when adapting and test stimuli have collinear carrier gratings, the global position of the object shows a substantial shift in the direction of the illusory motion. When the carrier gratings of the adapting and test stimuli are orthogonal (a configuration in which no MAE is experienced), a global positional shift of similar magnitude is found. The illusory positional shift was found to be immune to changes in spatial frequency and to contrast between adapting and test stimuli—manipulations that dramatically reduce the magnitude of the traditional MAE. The lack of sensitivity for stimulus characteristics other than direction of motion suggests that a specialized population of cortical neurones, which are insensitive to changes in a number of rudimentary visual attributes [3], may modulate positional representation in lower cortical areas.