Motion transparency promotes synchronous perceptual binding

While identified regions of human extrastriate visual cortex are functionally specialized for processing different attributes of an object, the cognitive and neural mechanisms by which these attributes are dynamically bound into integrated percepts are still largely mysterious. Here, we report that perceptual organization influences the dynamics of binding. Specifically, the perception of motion transparency promotes the synchronous perceptual binding of colour and motion, which otherwise exhibits considerable asynchronies. In addition, we demonstrate that perceptual asynchrony can be reinstated by manipulating stereoscopic disparity or speed within the stimulus. Our findings suggest that the phenomenology of colour-motion binding parallels the known physiology of motion processing in area MT of primate visual cortex, supporting the view that the dynamics of perceptual binding is a direct reflection of the time course of the underlying neural processing.