PERCEPTION OF WHEEL-GENERATED MOTIONS

Data are presented on a familiar gestalt demonstration--perceiving wheel-generated motions--in which the perceived motions of a rolling wheel are shown not to be obviously derived from the motions of its parts. A discussion is presented of G. Johansson (1973) who maintained that common vectors are extracted from moving events first and H. Wallach's (1976) assertion that the motion of objects relative to each other is first. In 5 experiments with a total of 157 undergraduates, Ss rated how wheel-like the movement of various point-light systems attached to a rolling wheel appeared to be. Results support Wallach's views. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.