Abstract
This paper presents a unified approach for studying the perception of motion, stereopsis, and static-flow (Glass) patterns. The objective is to address the same issues across these “modalities.” To this end, a new class of stimuli and procedures were developed, the key feature of which is the incorporation of a forced-choice competition paradigm into the random-dot stimuli paradigm that has traditionally been used in these modalities. The two competing percepts that are pitted against each other are opposite directions for motion, near/far depth planes for stereopsis, and orthogonal global patterns for Glass patterns. The differences in qualitative predictions for competing hypotheses are generally well pronounced, and the results provide clear evidence for deciding between alternative hypotheses. This approach has been used to confirm that covariance is the preferred metric for eliciting global correlations in all the modalities and to investigate the nature of front-end processes in each modality. It has the potential for neurophysiological studies for both single-cell and neuronal ensemble recording.
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The authors thank Akos Feher for implementing the computer programs, and Junqing Huang for developing software and administering experiments. We also acknowledge valuable suggestions by Charles Chubb, Zygmunt Pizlo, Peter Werkhoven, and an anonymous reviewer. This research was supported by Grant BNS-910938 from the National Science Foundation to T. V. P. and Grant 91-074 (DRET) to A. G. Preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation and OTKA (U.S.-Hungarian Science and Technology Joint Fund JF-360) to I.K., and a grant from the McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience to T.V.P., A.G., and B.J.
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Papathomas, T.V., Kovács, I., Gorea, A. et al. A unified approach to the perception of motion, stereo, and static-flow patterns. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 27, 419–432 (1995). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03200441
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03200441