Visual priming of two-step motion sequences

Perception of an ambiguous apparent motion is influenced by the immediately preceding motion. In positive priming, when an observer is primed with a slow-pace (1–3 Hz) sequence of motion frames depicting unidirectional drift (e.g., Right–Right–Right–Right), subsequent sequences of ambiguous frames are often perceived to continue moving in the primed direction (illusory Right–Right …). Furthermore, priming an observer with a slow-pace sequence of rebounding apparent motion frames that alternate between opponently coded motion directions (e.g., Right–Left–Right–Left) leads to an illusory continuation of the two-step rebounding sequence in subsequent random frames. Here, we show that even more arbitrary two-step motion sequences can be primed; in particular, two-step motion sequences that alternate between non-opponently coded directions (e.g., Up–Right–Up–Right; staircase motion) can be primed to be illusorily perceived in subsequent random frames. We found that staircase sequences, but not drifting or rebounding sequences, were primed more effectively with four priming frames compared with two priming frames, suggesting the importance of repeating the sequence element for priming arbitrary two-step motion sequences. Moreover, we compared the effectiveness of motion primes to that of symbolic primes (arrows) and found that motion primes were significantly more effective at producing prime-consistent responses. Although it has been proposed that excitatory and rivalry-like mechanisms account for drifting and rebounding motion priming, current motion processing models cannot account for our observed priming of staircase motion. We argue that higher order processes involving the recruitment and interaction of both attention and visual working memory are required to account for the type of two-step motion priming reported here.