Perception of Orientation of Motion as Affected by Change in Divergence of Texture, Change in Size, and in Velocity

Abstract

When there is relative motion between an observer and a textured surface such as the ground, motion-related visual information is available about the orientation of the surface through vergence of the paths of the elements of the texture, change in their sizes and in their velocities. This experiment determined the perceptual effectiveness of each variable in foveal and peripheral viewing for producing perceptions of three-dimensional motion. The three variables were electronically separated and displayed singly, in all possible pairs, and all together. Subjects communicated their perceptions of degree of perceived surface tilt at the top, bottom, and middle of the display for the eight different combinations of variables because, during pilot work perceived surface bendings were frequently noted where top, bottom, and middle appeared tilted to different extents. All three variables can lead to relatively reliable perceptions of perceived orientation of the plane of motion, with change in velocity being the most powerful determiner. Change in size was the weakest. Certain combinations can lead to perceptions of extreme warping and should be avoided in motion displays. Subjects consistently underestimate the amount of simulated tilt. Foveal viewing was more accurate than peripheral viewing but peripheral performance was adequately consistent as an input channel for some orientation tasks.

Flexible contextual modulation of naturalistic texture perception in peripheral vision

“…As explained above, our work points to additional processes such as flexible surround suppression and facilitation whose relation to crowding is uncertain and which may be of particularly high relevance to texture contextual modulation. Finally, it is worth noting that some of the tasks most associated with peripheral vision such as scene perception (Ehinger & Rosenholtz, 2016;Brady, Shafer-Skelton, & Alvarez, 2017;Groen, Silson, & Baker, 2017), guidance of eye movements (Parkhurst & Niebur, 2004;Frey, König, & Einhäuser, 2007;Schmid & Victor, 2014) and the control of body movement (Brandt, Dichgans, & Koenig, 1973;Bardy, Warren, & Kay, 1999;Berencsi, Ishihara, & Imanaka, 2005) have been proposed to use texture as a major source of information (Harrington et al, 1985;Sinai, Krebs, Darken, Rowland, & McCarley, 1999;Parkhurst & Niebur, 2004;Frey et al, 2007;Schmid & Victor, 2014;Brady et al, 2017;Groen et al, 2017;Ehinger & Rosenholtz, 2016). Therefore, understanding the role of contextual modulation on texture perception in the periphery may be an important step for understanding of the limitations of peripheral vision in natural behavior.…”

Flexible contextual modulation of naturalistic texture perception in peripheral vision

“…To our knowledge, this is the first report of the effects of crowding on texture perception, though crowding has been frequently described as objects undergoing ‘forced texture processing’ (Rosenholtz, 2016). Given that some of the tasks most associated with peripheral vision such as scene perception (Groen, Silson, & Baker, 2017; Ehinger & Rosenholtz, 2016; Brady, Shafer-Skelton, & Alvarez, 2017), guidance of eye movements (Parkhurst & Niebur, 2004; Frey, König, & Einhäuser, 2007; Schmid & Victor, 2014) and the control body of movement (Bardy, Warren, & Kay, 1999; Berencsi, Ishihara, & Imanaka, 2005; Harrington et al, 1985; Sinai, Krebs, Darken, Rowland, & McCarley, 1999; Brandt, Dichgans, & Koenig, 1973) have also been connected to texture perception, further studies on the effects of crowding on texture perception and on these tasks is needed for a complete understanding of peripheral vision limitations in natural vision. Similarly, our results suggest that previous studies of crowding in natural scenes (Wallis & Peter J. Bex, 2012; Gong et al, 2018) might also have measured, to an unknown degree, other contextual modulation processes affecting texture perception.…”