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Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect

We report some new observations on what could be regarded as the world’s simplest visual illusion—the autokinetic effect. When a single dim spot of light is viewed in a completely dark room, it moves vividly in random directions. During steady fixation, perhaps subtle eye movements cause the image t...

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Autores principales: Ramachandran, Vilayanur S., Chunharas, Chaipat, Croft, Rachel, Batal, Nader
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5777566/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29375754
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2041669517752716
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author Ramachandran, Vilayanur S.
Chunharas, Chaipat
Croft, Rachel
Batal, Nader
author_facet Ramachandran, Vilayanur S.
Chunharas, Chaipat
Croft, Rachel
Batal, Nader
author_sort Ramachandran, Vilayanur S.
collection PubMed
description We report some new observations on what could be regarded as the world’s simplest visual illusion—the autokinetic effect. When a single dim spot of light is viewed in a completely dark room, it moves vividly in random directions. During steady fixation, perhaps subtle eye movements cause the image to move and a failure to correct for this using eye movement command signals leads to motion perception. This is especially true because eye muscle fatigue can lead to miscalibration. However, if two dots are shown, they often move independently in different directions, which negate the eye movement theory. In addition, two lines defining a single cross sometimes uncouple and slide past each other and the fragments composing a hidden object move independently until they click in place and the whole object is perceived—implying that the illusion occurs relatively late in visual processing. Finally, the effect is modulated by vestibular stimulation; anchoring your sense of self may be a prerequisite for binding features into coherent objects.
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spelling pubmed-57775662018-01-26 Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect Ramachandran, Vilayanur S. Chunharas, Chaipat Croft, Rachel Batal, Nader Iperception Short and Sweet We report some new observations on what could be regarded as the world’s simplest visual illusion—the autokinetic effect. When a single dim spot of light is viewed in a completely dark room, it moves vividly in random directions. During steady fixation, perhaps subtle eye movements cause the image to move and a failure to correct for this using eye movement command signals leads to motion perception. This is especially true because eye muscle fatigue can lead to miscalibration. However, if two dots are shown, they often move independently in different directions, which negate the eye movement theory. In addition, two lines defining a single cross sometimes uncouple and slide past each other and the fragments composing a hidden object move independently until they click in place and the whole object is perceived—implying that the illusion occurs relatively late in visual processing. Finally, the effect is modulated by vestibular stimulation; anchoring your sense of self may be a prerequisite for binding features into coherent objects. SAGE Publications 2018-01-17 /pmc/articles/PMC5777566/ /pubmed/29375754 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2041669517752716 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Short and Sweet
Ramachandran, Vilayanur S.
Chunharas, Chaipat
Croft, Rachel
Batal, Nader
Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect
title Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect
title_full Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect
title_fullStr Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect
title_full_unstemmed Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect
title_short Effect of Grouping, Segmentation, and Vestibular Stimulation on the Autokinetic Effect
title_sort effect of grouping, segmentation, and vestibular stimulation on the autokinetic effect
topic Short and Sweet
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5777566/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29375754
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2041669517752716
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