Diverted by dazzle: perceived movement direction is biased by target pattern orientation.

ABSTRACT: 'Motion dazzle' is the hypothesis that predators may misjudge the speed or direction of moving prey which have high-contrast patterning, such as stripes. However, there is currently little experimental evidence that such patterns cause visual illusions. Here, observers binocularly tracked a Gabor target, moving with a linear trajectory randomly chosen within 18° of the horizontal. This target then became occluded, and observers were asked to judge where they thought it would later cross a vertical line to the side. We found that internal motion of the stripes within the Gabor biased judgements as expected: Gabors with upwards internal stripe motion relative to the overall direction of motion were perceived to be crossing above Gabors with downwards internal stripe movement. However, surpri

SUBMITTER: Hughes AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5360933 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature