Simple rotary motion is integrated across fixations.

Full Abstract

Participants were shown a line rotating at a constant angular velocity and were asked to judge whether motion was continuous or whether the line jumped (i.e., moved either forward or backward in the rotary cycle). In two experiments, the participants were significantly better than chance in detecting these jumps in simple rotary motion even when the jumps occurred during a saccade. Moreover, in Experiment 2, when the jump occurred during a saccade followed by a masking flash, perception of the jump was at least as good as when it occurred during a fixation followed by a masking flash. These results complement and extend the findings of Verfaillie and co-workers, who found that perceptions of some changes in biological motion were as good across fixations as when they occurred during a fixation. These findings are in contrast to the common finding, in the reading literature, that people are consciously "blind" to many changes in the text and to those, in the scene perception literature, in which detection of static changes across fixations is above chance but plausibly well below the level that would be expected if the change occurred during a fixation.

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Author information

Author/s: Pollatsek, Alexander (A); Rayner, Keith (K);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA. pollatsek(-atsign-)psych.umass.edu

Grants: HD26765 (Agency:United States NICHD) ; MH01255 (Agency:United States NIMH)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Perception & psychophysics (Percept Psychophys), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Oct; vol 64 (issue 7) : pp 1120-9

Dates: Created 2002/12/19; Completed 2003/01/23; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12489666, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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