Detection and discrimination of coherent motion

When viewing a pair of bars defined by the difference of spatial Gaussian functions (DOGs), human observers can discriminate accurately the relative movements of the bars, even when they differ in spatial frequency. On each trial, observers viewed two brief presentation intervals in which a pair of vertically oriented DOGs moved randomly back and forth within a restricted range. During one interval, both bars moved in the same horizontal direction and by the same magnitude (correlated movements); in the other interval, their movements were uncorrelated. When discrimination accuracy is related to the simultaneous detection of two independent movements, it was found that, if observers can detect the movements of spatially separated bars, they can tell whether their relative movements are correlated. Performance remained remarkably accurate even when the two bars differed in spatial frequency by more than two octaves or were presented separately to the two eyes. Apparently, the accurate discrimination of coherent motion involves an efficient spatial integration of optical motion information over multiple spatial locations and multiple spatial scales.