Motor-induced visual motion: hand movements driving visual motion perception.

Abstract

Visual perception can be changed by co-occurring input from other sensory modalities. Here, we explored how self-generated finger movements (left-right or up-down key presses) affect visual motion perception. In Experiment 1, motion perception of a blinking bar was shifted in the direction of co-occurring hand motor movements, indicative of motor-induced visual motion (MIVM). In Experiment 2, moving and static blinking bars were combined with either directional moving or stationary hand motor movements. Results showed that the directional component in the hand movement was crucial for MIVM as stationary motor movements even declined visual motion perception. In Experiment 3, the role of response bias was excluded in a two-alternative forced-choice task that ruled out the effect of response strategies. All three experiments demonstrated that alternating key presses (either horizontally or vertically aligned) induce illusory visual motion and that stationary motor movements (without a vertical or horizontal direction) induce the opposite effect, namely a decline in visual motion (more static) perception.