Moving Glass Patterns: Asymmetric Interaction between Motion and form

The perceived motion direction of a moving Glass pattern is influenced by the orientation of the dot pairs (dipoles) that generate the pattern (Krekelberg et al, 2003 Nature 424 674–677; Ross, 2004 Vision Research 44 441–448). Here, we investigate how the motion vector and the dipole orientation of moving Glass patterns influence the perceived orientation of each. We employed 1 s movie presentations of sequences of linear Glass patterns, each consisting of 200 dot pairs. Signal pairs, aligned in a common orientation, moved in a common direction. The observer's task was to indicate either the perceived direction of motion, or the perceived dipole orientation of Glass patterns that consisted of either same-polarity dipoles, or opposite-polarity dipoles. Perceived orientation or motion direction was measured as a function of the angular difference between the orientation and the motion direction of the dipoles. We found that the apparent global direction of motion was attracted by approximately 4° towards the dipole orientation for small (15°, 23°) angular differences between dipole motion-direction and dipole orientation, regardless of dipole polarity. However, under the same stimulus conditions, the apparent global orientation was much less affected by the direction of motion, suggesting that motion and form interact asymmetrically. Global form influences global motion-direction perception more powerfully than global motion influences global form perception.