Visual Coherence Affects Smooth Pursuit
For four subjects (one naive), we measured pursuit of a line-figure diamond moving along an elliptical path behind an invisible X-shaped aperture under two conditions. The diamond's corners were occluded and only four moving line segments were visible over the background (38 cd m−2). At low segment luminance (44 cd m−2), the percept is largely a coherently moving diamond. At high luminance (108 cd m−2), the percept is largely four independently moving segments. Along with this perceptual effect, there were parallel changes in pursuit. In the low-contrast condition, pursuit was more related to object motion. A \chi2 analysis showed ( p>0.05) that for 98% of trials subjects were more likely tracking the object than the segments, for 29% of trials one could not reject the hypothesis that subjects were tracking the object and not the segments, and for 100% of trials one could reject the hypothesis that subjects were tracking the segments and not the object. Conversely, in the high-contrast condition, pursuit appeared more related to segment motion. For 66% of trials subjects were more likely tracking the segments than the object; for 94% of trials one could reject the hypothesis that subjects were tracking the object and not the segments; and for 13% of trials one could not reject the hypothesis that subjects were tracking the segments and not the object. These results suggest that pursuit is driven by the same object-motion signal as perception, rather than by simple retinal image motion.