Perceiving blurry scenes with translational optic flow, rotational optic flow or combined optic flow

Abstract

Perceiving the spatial layout of objects is crucial in visual scene perception. Optic flow provides information about spatial layout. This information is not affected by image blur because motion detection uses low spatial frequencies in image structure. Therefore, perceiving scenes with blurry vision should be effective when optic flow is available. Furthermore, when blurry images and optic flow interact, optic flow specifies spatial relations and calibrates blurry images. Calibrated image structure then preserves spatial relations specified by optic flow after motion stops. Thus, perceiving blurry scenes should be stable when optic flow and blurry images are available. We investigated the types of optic flow that facilitate recognition of blurry scenes and evaluated the stability of performance. Participants identified scenes in blurry videos when viewing single frames and the entire videos that contained translational flow (Experiment 1), rotational flow (Experiment 2) or both (Experiment 3). When first viewing the blurry images, participants identified a few scenes. When viewing blurry video clips, their performance improved with translational flow, whether it was available alone or in combination with rotational flow. Participants were still able to perceive scenes from static blurry images one week later. Therefore, translational flow interacts with blurry image structures to yield effective and stable scene perception. These results imply that observers with blurry vision may be able to identify their surrounds when they locomote.