A THEORY OF VISUAL MOVEMENT PERCEPTION

Develops a mathematical model for visual movement perception and applies it to data from several experiments. Movement perception is treated as a problem of position memory: an O compares the position of an object at 1 point in time with his memory of its position earlier in time. The accuracy of this comparison appears to be limited by noise in his eye positioning system which is cumulative with time. Although involuntary eye movements are suggested as a major component of this noise, other covert components are also considered. A measure of visual movement sensitivity is defined which is independent of the O's response bias. Invariant estimates of this sensitivity parameter are shown to be recovered from a wide variety of perceptual tasks. (27 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.