Motion-induced blindness

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In this demonstration the observer focuses at the flickering green dot in the middle. After about 10 seconds, the observer sees one, two or all three of the static yellow dots arranged at the corners of an imaginary equilateral triangle disappear and then reappear. These disappearances and reappearances continue pseudo-randomly for as long as the observer cares to look. MotionBlindnessf.gif
In this demonstration the observer focuses at the flickering green dot in the middle. After about 10 seconds, the observer sees one, two or all three of the static yellow dots arranged at the corners of an imaginary equilateral triangle disappear and then reappear. These disappearances and reappearances continue pseudo-randomly for as long as the observer cares to look.

Motion Induced Blindness (MIB), also known as Bonneh's illusion is a visual illusion in which a large, continuously moving pattern erases from perception some small, continuously presented, stationary dots when one looks steadily at the center of the display. It was discovered by Bonneh, Cooperman, and Sagi (2001), who used a swarm of blue dots moving on a virtual sphere as the larger pattern and three small yellow dots as the smaller pattern. They found that after about 10 seconds, one or more of the dots disappeared for brief, random times. [2]

Contents

The illustrated version is a reproduction of an MIB display used by Michael Bach (2002). [3] Bach replaced the 3D swarm of blue dots with a flat, rotating matrix of blue crosses and added a central, green, flashing dot for people to keep their eyes on. This produces robust disappearances of the yellow dots.

Bonnh et al. attributed the causes of the illusion to attentional mechanisms, arguing that the visual system operates in a winner-takes-all manner. [2]

Disappearances of easily visible, stationary patterns presented to one eye can happen when a different pattern is presented to the other eye—binocular rivalry, discovered in 1593. [4] This also happens when the other eye's pattern is moving. [5] [6]

Similar, but weaker disappearances happen when the two patterns are both presented to one or to both eyes—monocular rivalry, discovered in 1898. Moreover, easily visible stationary patterns that are away from where one looks can disappear with steady fixation—Troxler's fading, discovered in 1804. Other related illusions are flash suppression and motion-induced interocular suppression.

Causes

Interhemispheric Switch

There is a correlation between an individual's switch rate during binocular rivalry and the rate of disappearance and reappearance in MIB in the same individual. [7] This is most evident when the investigation involves an adequate sample from the 8-10X range of switch rates in the human population. In addition, TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation interruption of the MIB cycle is specific jointly, for both the hemisphere receiving the TMS pulse and the phase of the MIB cycle, with the disappearance phase susceptible to interruption via Left hemisphere TMS and the reappearance phase susceptible to Right hemisphere interruption. [8] In this way, MIB is like binocular rivalry, where hemispheric manipulations using caloric vestibular stimulation (or TMS) also require the correct combination of cerebral hemisphere and phase (1/4 possibilities). [9]

From these observations, it can be argued that MIB is an interhemispheric switching phenomenon, an unexpected member of the class of rhythmic, biphasic, perceptual rivalries such as binocular rivalry and plaid motion rivalry. [9] In this formulation, the disappearance in MIB can be understood in terms of the cognitive style of the Left hemisphere, which chooses a single possibility from the many, and ignores or "denies" the others (denial being one of the characteristic defence mechanisms of the Left, which becomes exaggerated in the Left hemisphere bias of mania). MIB reappearance is attributable to the Right hemisphere, whose "discrepancy detector" cognitive style assesses all possibilities, and therefore disagrees with the biased decision to ignore the bright yellow stimulus. [10] A corollary of this formulation is a predictable connection between MIB and mood, which was successfully tested on thousands of viewers watching ABC TV's Catalyst Program in Australia, where longer disappearance phases were observed in euphoric individuals and very short, or absent, disappearances were a feature of the dysphoria of stress, trauma and depression.

Surface completion

Numerous psychophysical findings emphasize the importance of surface completion and depth cues in visual perception. Thus, if MIB is affected by these factors it will regulate in accordance to simple occlusion principles. In their study, Graf et al. (2002) stereoscopically presented a moving grid stimulus set behind, in front of, or in the same plane as the static dots. They then showed involuntary completion of the grid elements into a surface interacting with the static targets - creating an illusion of occlusion. [11] When the grid appeared in front of the targets the proportion of disappearance was larger than when it was behind or on the same plane. Although to a lesser extent, MIB did nonetheless occur in the conditions where the perceptual occlusion was not taking place (targets were in front of the mask).

The effect of interposition and perceived depth on target disappearance in MIB was also shown in a study done by Hsu et al. (2010) where a concave target appearing behind its surrounding disappeared more frequently than a convex one appearing in front of the mask. [12] These effects, albeit being less significant, were replicated in similar settings without the use of motion.

The above experiments show that surface completion and simple occlusion precepts can predictably modulate MIB. However. they do not explain the origin of MIB, and may only be evoking other processes contingent upon it. Moreover, the surface completion theory does not explain the role of motion in this phenomenon.

Perceptual filling-in

Hsu et al. (2004) compared MIB to a similar phenomenon of perceptual filling-in (PFI), which likewise reveals a striking dissociation between the percept and the sensory input. [13] They describe both as visual attributes which are perceived in a certain region of the visual field regardless of being in the background (in the same manner as colour, brightness or texture) thus inducing target disappearance. They argue that because in both MIB and PFI the disappearance, or the incorporation of the background motion stimuli, becomes more profound with an increase in eccentricity, with a decrease in contrast, and when perceptual grouping with other stimuli is controlled for. The two illusions are very likely to be a result of intermutual processes. Since MBI and PFI show to be structurally similar, it seems plausible that MIB can be a phenomenon responsible for completing missing information across the blind spot and scotomas where motion is involved.

Motion streak suppression

Rather than a deficiency of our visual processing, MIB may be a functional side effect of the visual system's attempt to facilitate a better perception of movement. Wallis and Arnold (2009) propose a plausible explanation of target disappearance in MIB by linking it to the processes responsible for motion streak suppression. [14] In their view, target disappearance is a side effect of our vision's attempt to provide an apparent perception of moving form. MIB shows to be hindered at equiluminance and augmented at the trailing edges of movement, all reminiscent of motion streak suppression. It appears that what drives MIB is a competition between a neural signal sensitive to spatiotemporal luminance and one responding to proximate stationary targets; where the stronger signal eventuates with what we actually perceive at any given moment (Donner et al., 2008). [15]

Perceptual scotoma

A different explanatory approach by New and Scholl (2008) proposes that the phenomenon is another instance of our visual system's endeavor to provide clear and accurate perception. [16] Because the static targets appear to be invariant with respect to the background motion, the visual system removes them from our awareness, discarding it as being contrary to the logic of perception and real life situations; thus treating it as a piece of disaffiliated retina or a scotoma. Consistent with this account is the fact that targets which are stabilized on the retina are more likely to be induced to disappearance than the ones moving across the retina.

Implications

MIB may reveal the mechanisms underlying our visual perception. [2]

Researchers have speculated about whether MIB occurs outside the laboratory, without being noticed. Situations such as driving, in which some night drivers should see stationary red tail lights of the preceding cars disappear temporally when they attend to the moving stream of lights from oncoming traffic may be case points. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optical illusion</span> Visually perceived images that differ from objective reality

In visual perception, an optical illusion is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide variety; their categorization is difficult because the underlying cause is often not clear but a classification proposed by Richard Gregory is useful as an orientation. According to that, there are three main classes: physical, physiological, and cognitive illusions, and in each class there are four kinds: Ambiguities, distortions, paradoxes, and fictions. A classical example for a physical distortion would be the apparent bending of a stick half immerged in water; an example for a physiological paradox is the motion aftereffect. An example for a physiological fiction is an afterimage. Three typical cognitive distortions are the Ponzo, Poggendorff, and Müller-Lyer illusion. Physical illusions are caused by the physical environment, e.g. by the optical properties of water. Physiological illusions arise in the eye or the visual pathway, e.g. from the effects of excessive stimulation of a specific receptor type. Cognitive visual illusions are the result of unconscious inferences and are perhaps those most widely known.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Necker cube</span> Form of perceptual phenomena

The Necker cube is an optical illusion that was first published as a Rhomboid in 1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker. It is a simple wire-frame, two dimensional drawing of a cube with no visual cues as to its orientation, so it can be interpreted to have either the lower-left or the upper-right square as its front side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afterimage</span> Image that continues to appear in the eyes after a period of exposure to the original image

An afterimage is an image that continues to appear in the eyes after a period of exposure to the original image. An afterimage may be a normal phenomenon or may be pathological (palinopsia). Illusory palinopsia may be a pathological exaggeration of physiological afterimages. Afterimages occur because photochemical activity in the retina continues even when the eyes are no longer experiencing the original stimulus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amblyopia</span> Failure of the brain to process input from one eye

Amblyopia, also called lazy eye, is a disorder of sight in which the brain fails to fully process input from one eye and over time favors the other eye. It results in decreased vision in an eye that typically appears normal in other aspects. Amblyopia is the most common cause of decreased vision in a single eye among children and younger adults.

The visual field is "that portion of space in which objects are visible at the same moment during steady fixation of the gaze in one direction"; in modern ophthalmology and neurology it is considered “the field of functional capacity obtained and recorded by means of perimetry”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binocular rivalry</span>

Binocular rivalry is a phenomenon of visual perception in which perception alternates between different images presented to each eye.

Multistable perception is a perceptual phenomenon in which an observer experiences an unpredictable sequence of spontaneous subjective changes. While usually associated with visual perception, multistable perception can also be experienced with auditory and olfactory percepts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monocular rivalry</span>

Monocular rivalry is a phenomenon of human visual perception that occurs when two different images are optically superimposed. During prolonged viewing, one image becomes clearer than the other for a few moments, then the other image becomes clearer than the first for a few moments. These alternations in clarity continue at random for as long as one looks. Occasionally one image will become exclusively visible and the other image invisible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambiguous image</span> Image that exploits graphical similarities between two or more distinct images

Ambiguous images or reversible figures are visual forms that create ambiguity by exploiting graphical similarities and other properties of visual system interpretation between two or more distinct image forms. These are famous for inducing the phenomenon of multistable perception. Multistable perception is the occurrence of an image being able to provide multiple, although stable, perceptions.

Stereopsis is the component of depth perception retrieved through binocular vision. Stereopsis is not the only contributor to depth perception, but it is a major one. Binocular vision happens because each eye receives a different image because they are in slightly different positions on one's head. These positional differences are referred to as "horizontal disparities" or, more generally, "binocular disparities". Disparities are processed in the visual cortex of the brain to yield depth perception. While binocular disparities are naturally present when viewing a real three-dimensional scene with two eyes, they can also be simulated by artificially presenting two different images separately to each eye using a method called stereoscopy. The perception of depth in such cases is also referred to as "stereoscopic depth".

Akinetopsia, also known as cerebral akinetopsia or motion blindness, is a term introduced by Semir Zeki to describe an extremely rare neuropsychological disorder, having only been documented in a handful of medical cases, in which a patient cannot perceive motion in their visual field, despite being able to see stationary objects without issue. The syndrome is the result of damage to area V5, whose cells are specialized to detect directional visual motion. There are varying degrees of akinetopsia: from seeing motion as frames of a cinema reel to an inability to discriminate any motion. There is currently no effective treatment or cure for akinetopsia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flash lag illusion</span> Optical illusion

The flash lag illusion or flash-lag effect is a visual illusion wherein a flash and a moving object that appear in the same location are perceived to be displaced from one another. Several explanations for this simple illusion have been explored in the neuroscience literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Filling-in</span>

In vision, filling-in phenomena are those responsible for the completion of missing information across the physiological blind spot, and across natural and artificial scotomata. There is also evidence for similar mechanisms of completion in normal visual analysis. Classical demonstrations of perceptual filling-in involve filling in at the blind spot in monocular vision, and images stabilized on the retina either by means of special lenses, or under certain conditions of steady fixation. For example, naturally in monocular vision at the physiological blind spot, the percept is not a hole in the visual field, but the content is “filled-in” based on information from the surrounding visual field. When a textured stimulus is presented centered on but extending beyond the region of the blind spot, a continuous texture is perceived. This partially inferred percept is paradoxically considered more reliable than a percept based on external input..

Flash suppression is a phenomenon of visual perception in which an image presented to one eye is suppressed by a flash of another image presented to the other eye.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neural correlates of consciousness</span> Neuronal events sufficient for a specific conscious percept

The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) refer to the relationships between mental states and neural states and constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept. Neuroscientists use empirical approaches to discover neural correlates of subjective phenomena; that is, neural changes which necessarily and regularly correlate with a specific experience. The set should be minimal because, under the materialist assumption that the brain is sufficient to give rise to any given conscious experience, the question is which of its components are necessary to produce it.

Continuous flash suppression (CFS) is an adapted version of the original flash suppression method, first reported in 2004. In CFS, the first eye is presented with a static stimulus, such as a schematic face, while the second eye is presented with a series of rapidly changing stimuli. The result is the static stimulus becomes consciously repressed by the stimuli presented in the second eye. A variant of CFS to suppress a dynamic stimulus is also reported

Multistable auditory perception is a cognitive phenomenon in which certain auditory stimuli can be perceived in multiple ways. While multistable perception has been most commonly studied in the visual domain, it also has been observed in the auditory and olfactory modalities. In the olfactory domain, different scents are piped to the two nostrils, while in the auditory domain, researchers often examine the effects of binaural sequences of pure tones. Generally speaking, multistable perception has three main characteristics: exclusivity, implying that the multiple perceptions cannot simultaneously occur; randomness, indicating that the duration of perceptual phases follows a random law, and inevitability, meaning that subjects are unable to completely block out one percept indefinitely.

Binocular rivalry is a visual phenomenon wherein one experiences alternating perceptions due to the occurrence of different stimuli presented to the corresponding retinal regions of the two eyes and their competition for perceptual dominance.

Binocular switch suppression (BSS) is a technique to suppress usually salient images from an individual's awareness, a type of experimental manipulation used in visual perception and cognitive neuroscience. In BSS, two images of differing signal strengths are repetitively switched between the left and right eye at a constant rate of 1 Hertz. During this process of switching, the image of lower contrast and signal strength is perceptually suppressed for a period of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motion silencing illusion</span>

Motion silencing is an illusion or perceptual phenomenon in which objects that are rapidly changing in a particular salient property seem to cease changing with motion. The illusion was first identified by Jordan Suchow and George Alvarez in the publication of their research on the topic.

References

  1. ↑ Carter, Olivia L; Pettigrew, John D (2003). "A common oscillator for perceptual rivalries?". Perception. 32 (3): 295–305. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.551.3326 . doi:10.1068/p3472. PMID   12729381. S2CID   7158733.
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  3. ↑ Bach, Michael. "Motion-Induced Blindness". 151 Illusions & Visual Phenomena with explanations. Michael Bach. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  4. ↑ Porta, Giambattista Della (1593). De refractione optices parte: libri novem. Naples: Ex officina Horatii Salviani, apud Jo. Jacobum Carlinum, & Antonium Pacem. OCLC   14189138.
  5. ↑ Breese, B. B. (1899). "On inhibition". The Psychological Review: Monograph Supplements. 3 (1): i–65. doi:10.1037/h0092990. S2CID   249336219.
  6. ↑ Grindley, G. C.; Townsend, Valerie (1 June 1965). "Binocular masking induced by a moving object". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 17 (2): 97–109. doi:10.1080/17470216508416418. ISSN   0033-555X. S2CID   144023667.
  7. ↑ O Carter, O; Pettigrew, J.D. (2006). "Plaid Motion Rivalry: correlates with binocular rivalry and positive mood state". Perception. 35 (2): 157–69. doi:10.1068/p5395. PMID   16583762. S2CID   14859227.
  8. ↑ A Funk, A; Pettigrew, J.D. (2003). "Does Interhemispheric Competition Mediate Motion-Induced-Blindness? A Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation Study". Perception. 32 (11): 1328–38. doi:10.1068/p5088. PMID   14959794. S2CID   2645699.
  9. 1 2 Miller, Steven M.; Liu, Guang B.; Ngo, Trung T.; Hooper, Greg; Riek, Stephan; Carson, Richard G.; Pettigrew, John D. (2000). "Interhemispheric switching mediates perceptual rivalry" (PDF). Current Biology. 10 (7): 383–92. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(00)00416-4. PMID   10753744. S2CID   51808719.
  10. ↑ Forrest, D. V. (2000). "Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind". American Journal of Psychiatry. 157 (5): 841–2. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.157.5.841.
  11. ↑ Graf, E. W.; Adams, W. J.; Lages, M. (November 2002). "Modulating motion-induced blindness with depth ordering and surface completion". Vision Research . 42 (25): 2731–5. doi: 10.1016/s0042-6989(02)00390-5 . PMID   12450492. S2CID   15647622.
  12. ↑ Hsu, L. C.; Kramer, P.; Yeh, S. L. (August 2010). "Monocular depth effects on perceptual fading". Vision Research . 50 (17): 1649–55. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2010.05.008 . PMID   20580732.
  13. ↑ Hsu, L. C.; Yeh, S. L.; Kramer, P. (November 2004). "Linking motion-induced blindness to perceptual filling-in". Vision Research . 44 (24): 2857–66. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2003.10.029 . PMID   15342229.
  14. ↑ Wallis, T. S.; Arnold, D. H. (24 February 2009). "Motion-induced blindness and motion streak suppression". Current Biology . 19 (4): 325–9. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.12.053 . PMID   19217295. S2CID   17361496.
  15. ↑ Donner, Tobias H.; Sagi, Dov; Bonneh, Yoram S.; Heeger, David J. (8 October 2008). "Opposite Neural Signatures of Motion-Induced Blindness in Human Dorsal and Ventral Visual Cortex". The Journal of Neuroscience . 28 (41): 10298–310. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2371-08.2008. PMC   2570589 . PMID   18842889.
  16. ↑ New, J. J.; Scholl, B. J. (July 2008). "'Perceptual scotomas': a functional account of motion-induced blindness". Psychological Science . 19 (7): 653–9. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02139.x. PMID   18727780. S2CID   4986693.
  17. ↑ Whitfield, John (14 June 2001). "A brain in doubt leaves it out". Nature News: news010614–9. doi: 10.1038/news010614-9 .
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