title: Directional shifts in the barber pole illusion: effects of spatial frequency, spatial adaptation, and lateral masking.
abstract: We report the results of psychophysical experiments with the so-called barber pole stimulus providing new insights on the neuronal processes underlying the analysis of moving features such as terminators or line-endings. In experiment 1, we show that the perceived direction of a barber pole stimulus, induced by line-ending motion, is highly dependent on the spatial frequency and contrast of the grating stimulus: perceived direction is shifted away from the barber pole illusion at high spatial frequency in a contrast dependent way, suggesting that line-ends are not processed at high spatial scales. In subsequent experiments, we use a contrast adaptation paradigm and a masking paradigm in an attempt to assess the spatial structure and location of the receptive fields that process line-endings. We show that the adapting stimulus that weakens most the barber pole illusion is localized within the barber pole stimulus and not at line-endings' locations. Current models of line-endings' motion processing are discussed in the light of these psychophysical results.
authors.affiliation: LENA, CNRS UPR 640, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lalanne
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lorenceau
mesh_terms: D000221:Adaptation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009903:Optical Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors