title: Motion-induced blindness is not tuned to retinal speed.
abstract: Motion-induced blindness is a visual phenomenon in which a moving pattern can cause superimposed static targets that remain physically present to intermittently disappear from awareness. To date, there has been little systematic investigation of the type of motion that induces the most robust perceptual disappearances. To address this issue, we investigated the temporal frequency and stimulus speed sensitivity of this phenomenon in two experiments. In the first, we used radial gratings and waveform modulation to decouple spatiotemporal frequency and retinal speed characteristics. The results suggested that motion-induced disappearances are tuned to temporal frequency, but not to stimulus speed. In the second, we showed that luminance flicker-induced disappearances were tuned to the same temporal frequency as motion-induced disappearances. In combination, these data suggest that motion-induced blindness does not depend on retinal stimulus speed. Rather, it seems to be broadly tuned for moderate rates of temporal modulation. This observation is reminiscent of other instances where motion and spatial coding interact to modulate visibility.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. t.wallis@psy.uq.edu.au
authors.forename: Thomas S A
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Wallis
authors.forename: Derek H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Arnold
mesh_terms: D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D001766:Blindness / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005425:Flicker Fusion / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012016:Reference Values; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology*