First- and second-order motion perception in Gabor micropattern stimuli: psychophysics and computational modelling.

This paper examines the perception of first- and second-order motion in human vision. In an extension of previous work by Boulton and Baker [J.B. Boulton, C.L. Baker, Motion detection is dependent on spatial frequency not size, Vision Res., 31 (1991) 77-87; J.B. Boulton, C.L. Baker, Different parameters control motion perception above and below a critical density, Vision Res., 33 (1993) 1803-1811], the direction of two-frame apparent motion is measured for stimuli composed of Gabor or Gaussian micropatterns. Three conditions are investigated. Condition 1 is that used by Boulton and Baker, in which motion is defined by the displacement of Gabor micropatterns. In condition 2, motion is defined by the displacement of Gaussian micropatterns. In condition 3, the envelopes of Gabor micropatterns are displaced while their carriers remain static. Using sparsely distributed micropatterns, direction judgements in all three conditions are determined by the spacing of the micropatterns. With a dense stimulus, direction judgements vary as a function of displacement in qualitatively different ways for the three conditions. The psychophysical results are predicted by a two-channel computational model. In one channel, motion is calculated directly from stimulus luminance, while in the other it is preceded by a texture-grabbing operation. The relative activities of the two channels dictates which governs direction judgements for any given stimulus.