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Science 14 May 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5417, pp. 1165 - 1168
DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5417.1165
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Reports

Visual Form Created Solely from Temporal Structure

Sang-Hun Lee, Randolph Blake *

In several experiments, it was found that global perception of spatial form can arise exclusively from unpredictable but synchronized changes among local features. Within an array of nonoverlapping apertures, contours move in one of two directions, with direction reversing randomly over time. When contours within a region of the array reverse directions in synchrony, they stand out conspicuously from the rest of the array where direction reversals are unsynchronized. Clarity of spatial structure from synchronized change depends on the rate of motion reversal and on the proportion of elements reversing direction in synchrony. Evidently, human vision is sensitive to the rich temporal structure in these stochastic events.

Vanderbilt Vision Research Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: randolph.blake{at}vanderbilt.edu

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