The role of object history in establishing object correspondence

Abstract

Our visual system establishes correspondence between objects and thus enables us to perceive an object, like a car on the road, as moving continuously. A central question regarding correspondence is whether our visual system uses relatively unprocessed image-based information or further processed object-based information to establish correspondence. While it has been shown that some object-based attributes, such as perceived lightness, can influence correspondence, manipulating object-based information typically involves at least minimal changes of image-based information as well, making it difficult to clearly distinguish between the two levels. To avoid this confound, we manipulated object-based information prior to the task in which we measured correspondence. We used 3-element Ternus displays to assess correspondence. These are ambiguous apparent-motion displays that, depending on how correspondence is solved, are perceived as either one element jumping across the others or as all three elements moving together as a group. We manipulated object-based information by presenting one of two object histories prior to the Ternus display. In one, they moved or changed luminance independently, and thus appeared independent from each other. In the other, the elements moved or changed their luminance all together and thus appeared grouped with each other. We found that the object history did influence how the Ternus displays were perceived, thereby confirming that object-based information alone can be used as a basis for establishing correspondence in line with object-based theories of correspondence.

Object correspondence: Using perceived causality to infer how the visual system knows what went where

“…It is possible that Ternus displays, which are more complex than simple apparent-motion displays, engage objectcorrespondence processes in addition to motioncorrespondence processes, and that this is why it reveals such large feature effects. This interpretation is supported by other recent studies showing that a perceived feature, specifically lightness (perceived) rather than luminance (physical), determined how Ternus displays were resolved (Hein & Moore, 2014), that the relevant spatial framework for Ternus motion is spatiotopic, rather than retinotopic (Hein & Cavanagh, 2012), that the history of the elements making up a Ternus display in terms of their object structure (grouped or ungrouped) influenced how Ternus motion was perceived (Stepper, Moore, Rolke, & Hein, 2019a), and, finally, that endogenously cued attention similarly influenced correspondence in Ternus motion (Stepper, Rolke, & Hein, 2019b).…”

Illusory size determines the perception of ambiguous apparent motion

“…The current results reinforce this conclusion by showing that the influence of objectbased information occurs at or beyond the level of amodal completion, at which image-based information was further processed taking into account context information. Therefore, this study offers further support for an object-based correspondence theory (Hein & Cavanagh, 2012;Hein & Moore, 2014;Stepper, Moore, Rolke, & Hein, 2019;, which states that all available information about an object, low-level and high-level, is taken into account for establishing correspondence, based on the (perceived) similarity between the individual element across frames.…”

The effects of spatial attention on temporal integration measured with the ternus display.

“…Most of the studies reporting this IFI effect involved a foveal presentation of the Ternus display. Only a few studies employed peripheral presentation of the Ternus display (Aydın et al, 2011; Breitmeyer & Ritter, 1986b; Stepper et al, 2020). The results of the current study confirm the finding that spatiotemporal factors influence correspondence processes even in the periphery.…”

“…Given this fundamental difference between the dual-task manipulation and direct manipulations of spatial attention, the study by Aydın et al (2011) does not provide evidence regarding the effect of spatial attention on temporal integration. A second study was done by Stepper et al (2020). They investigated the influence of endogenous attention on competitive feature biases in the Ternus display that contained simultaneously a group and an element bias (Hein & Schütz, 2019).…”