Perceived speed and direction of complex gratings and plaids

Abstract

Measurements of perceived speed were obtained for a variety of drifting simple and complex gratings, and measurements of perceived speed and direction were obtained for plaids. For sine gratings, perceived speed falls off at high spatial frequencies, the effect of spatial frequency being greatest at high speeds. Speed matches obtained from a variety of one-dimensional complex gratings are in some cases consistent with a simple averaging of the discrepant speeds signaled by their spatial Fourier components when seen alone. However, in other cases the results do not fit such an interpretation but suggest the involvement of a mechanism other than Fourier decomposition and recombination. Measurements of the perceived speed of plaids suggest that the observed spatial-frequency-dependent variations in encoded speed of gratings arise largely at a low level, before the aperture problem is solved. Measurements of the perceived direction of plaids whose components are of different spatial frequencies and hence have different perceived speeds show large deviations from the direction predicted by the intersection-of-velocity-constraints model [Nature 300, 523 (1982)] and are suggestive of a revised two-stage model in which the computation of pattern direction is based on the (sometimes disparate) perceived speeds of the components rather than their actual speeds.