Citation

Kim J, Tran MT. Iperception 2016; 7(2): e2041669516631695.

Affiliation

School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/2041669516631695

PMID

27433322

PMCID

PMC4934672

Abstract

We considered whether optic flow generated by 3D relief of a foreground surface might influence visually-mediated self-motion perception (vection). We generated background motion consistent with self-rotation, and a foreground object with bumpy relief was either rotated with the observer (ego-centric) or fixed in world coordinates (world-centric). We found that vection strength ratings were greater in conditions with world-centric retinal motion of the foreground object, despite generating flow that was opposite to background motion. This effect was explained by observer judgments of the axis self-rotation in depth; whereas ego-centric flow generated experiences of more on-axis self-rotation, world-centric flow generated experiences of centrifugal rotation around the foreground object. These data suggest that foreground object motion can increase the perception of self-motion generated by optic flow, even when they reduce net retinal motion coherence and promote conditions for multisensory conflict. This finding supports the view that self-motion perception depends on mid-level representations of whole-scene motion.

Language: en