Perception of illusory movement

Fraser, Alexander; Wilcox, Kimerly J.

doi:10.1038/281565a0

Cited by 95 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…All models of static motion illusions invoke behavior of direction-selective cells (Fraser and Wilcox, 1979;Faubert and Herbert, 1999;Kitaoka and Ashida, 2003), yet this has never been tested: the responses of direction-selective cells to static motion illusions have never been measured. To investigate whether the illusory motion in Figure 1 could be explained by the activity of direction-selective cells, we recorded from 39 directional single units in V1 and 20 units in MT of three alert, fixating macaque monkeys.…”

Section: Physiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The illusion produces a strong sensation of motion if fixation is maintained and the illusion is moved or flashed on and off (supplemental video 1, available at www.jneurosci.org as supplemental material), which shows that simply refreshing retinal stimulation is sufficient to elicit the illusion. The illusion is a modification of the peripheral drift illusion, a saw-tooth luminance profile that induces a weak motion illusion along the black-to-white gradient (Fraser and Wilcox, 1979;Faubert and Herbert, 1999). Kitaoka and Ashida (2003) proposed that the illusory motion in Figure 1 depends on the fact that black and white are higher contrast than dark gray and light gray (compared with the average gray of the entire display) and so produce faster responses in the visual system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neural Basis for a Powerful Static Motion Illusion

Conway

Kitaoka²,

Yazdanbakhsh³

et al. 2005

Journal of Neuroscience

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Most people see movement in Figure 1, although the image is static. Motion is seen from black 3 blue 3 white 3 yellow 3 black. Many hypotheses for the illusory motion have been proposed, although none have been tested physiologically. We found that the illusion works well even if it is achromatic: yellow is replaced with light gray, and blue is replaced with dark gray. We show that the critical feature for inducing illusory motion is the luminance relationship of the static elements. Illusory motion is seen from black 3 dark gray 3 white 3 light gray 3 black. In psychophysical experiments, we found that all four pairs of adjacent elements when presented alone each produced illusory motion consistent with the original illusion, a result not expected from any current models. We also show that direction-selective neurons in macaque visual cortex gave directional responses to the same static element pairs, also in a direction consistent with the illusory motion. This is the first demonstration of directional responses by single neurons to static displays and supports a model in which low-level, first-order motion detectors interpret contrast-dependent differences in response timing as motion. We demonstrate that this illusion is a static version of four-stroke apparent motion.

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Section: Physiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Basis for a Powerful Static Motion Illusion

Conway

Kitaoka²,

Yazdanbakhsh³

et al. 2005

Journal of Neuroscience

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“…The Rotating Snakes illusion (shown in Figure 2) was discovered by Kitaoka (2003) and it depends on the local arrangement of four color regions of different luminance: black (darkest), blue (second darkest), white (lightest), yellow (second lightest) (Kitaoka & Ashida, 2003;Kuriki et al, 2008). This illusion is called the Rotating Snakes illusion and can be considered an optimized version of either the Fraser-Wilcox illusion (Fraser & Wilcox, 1979;Naor-Raz & Sekuler, 2000) or the peripheral drift illusion (Faubert & Herbert, 1999). Conway et al (2005) suggested that these responses occur in the neurons in MT (middle temporal) and Kuriki et al (2008) showed that in humans hMT+ (middle temporal complex) responds to this illusion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cats and Illusory Motion

Bååth¹,

Seno²,

Kitaoka³

2014

PSYCH

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We present the first evidence that cats experience visual illusions and that a non-human animal can see illusory motion. In three videos we show cats reacting with hunting behavior when watching the Rotating Snakes illusion. This is taken to mean that cats see illusory motion in this image due to the propensity of cats to pursue movement. This is further supported by a survey where 29% of the respondents answered that their cat reacted to the illusion. A number of preferential looking experiments were also indicative of cats experiencing the illusion, but not conclusively so.

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“…More than three decades ago, Fraser and Wilcox (1979) developed a repetitive spiral arrangement of sawtooth luminance gradients that elicited illusory motion (Fig. 1 A).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microsaccades and Blinks Trigger Illusory Rotation in the “Rotating Snakes” Illusion

2012

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Certain repetitive arrangements of luminance gradients elicit the perception of strong illusory motion. Among them, the "Rotating Snakes Illusion" has generated a large amount of interest in the visual neurosciences, as well as in the public. Prior evidence indicates that the Rotating Snakes illusion depends critically on eye movements, yet the specific eye movement types involved and their associated neural mechanisms remain controversial. According to recent reports, slow ocular drift-a nonsaccadic type of fixational eye movement-drives the illusion, whereas microsaccades produced during attempted fixation fail to do so. Here, we asked human subjects to indicate the presence or absence of rotation during the observation of the illusion while we simultaneously recorded their eye movements with high precision. We found a strong quantitative link between microsaccade and blink production and illusory rotation. These results suggest that transient oculomotor events such as microsaccades, saccades, and blinks, rather than continuous drift, act to trigger the illusory motion in the Rotating Snakes illusion.

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Perception of illusory movement

Cited by 95 publications

References 2 publications

Neural Basis for a Powerful Static Motion Illusion

Neural Basis for a Powerful Static Motion Illusion

Cats and Illusory Motion

Microsaccades and Blinks Trigger Illusory Rotation in the “Rotating Snakes” Illusion

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