Seeing Properties of an Invisible Object: Feature Inheritance and Shine-Through

We characterize a class of spatio-temporal illusions with two complementary properties. Firstly, if a vernier stimulus is flashed for a short time on a monitor and is followed immediately by a grating, the latter can express features of the vernier, such as its offset, its orientation, or its motion...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 98; no. 7; pp. 4271 - 4275
Main Authors Herzog, Michael H., Koch, Christof
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 27.03.2001
National Acad Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences
Subjects
Attention - physiology
Biological Sciences
Eyes & eyesight
Five elements
Humans
Illusions - classification
Illusions - psychology
Motion
Neurons
Perception
Property titles
Psychology
Sensory perception
Social Sciences
Training
Travel
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Summary:We characterize a class of spatio-temporal illusions with two complementary properties. Firstly, if a vernier stimulus is flashed for a short time on a monitor and is followed immediately by a grating, the latter can express features of the vernier, such as its offset, its orientation, or its motion (feature inheritance). Yet the vernier stimulus itself remains perceptually invisible. Secondly, the vernier can be rendered visible by presenting gratings with a larger number of elements (shine-through). Under these conditions, subjects perceive two independent "objects" each carrying their own features. Transition between these two domains can be effected by subtle changes in the spatio-temporal layout of the grating. This should allow psychophysicists and electrophysiologists to investigate feature binding in a precise and quantitative manner.
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Communicated by George Sperling, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA
To whom reprint requests should be addressed at: Section of Human Neurobiology, Argonnenstrasse 3, 28211 Bremen, Germany. E-mail: mherzog@uni-bremen.de.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.071047498