Abstract
This paper proposes a new model for the human visual motion perception mechanism. The model can detect in a pertinent way the direction of motion of the object, even if the object moves in a background with a complex luminance distribution. When the object has such a background, the information concerning the object motion inevitably contains the disturbances due to the luminance distribution of the background. In the model for the motion perception mechanism up to now, however, this point has not been considered at all. This paper takes the view that the perception of the motion with such a background is essential in understanding the motion perception mechanism. Psychophysical experiments are presented to provide an insight into the motion perception mechanism for movement with a background.
The result of the experiment suggests that there exist two processing stages in the motion perception. The first stage is to fix the position of the moving object at a particular position in the visual field, and the second stage is to detect the movement of that position. Using a spatioβtemporal filter simulating the receptive field, a model composed of two such stages is constructed. A computer simulation is conducted to examine the validity of the method, and a result agreeing well with the human psychophysical characteristic is obtained.