Visual movement perception: A comparison of absolute and relative movement discrimination

It is proposed that there are two types of visual movement perception, absolute and relative. The former occurs when an object is seen to move in an otherwise homogeneous (or at least locally homogeneous) visual field. Relative judgments occur when one object is seen to move with respect to another, i.e., the separation between them is seen to change. Quantitative models for both processes are developed, and an experiment reported for which the models seem appropriate. The results appear relevant to a theory of size of length perception as well as to the general perceptual issue of absolute and relative judgments.