A model of contextual effect on reproduced extents in recall tasks: the issue of the imputed motion hypothesis

In this article the fundamental question of space and time dependencies in the reproduction of spatial or temporal extents is studied. The functional dependence of spatial responses on the temporal context and the corresponding dependence of temporal responses on spatial context are reported as the tau and kappa effects, respectively. A common explanation suggested that the participant imputes motion to discontinuous displays. Using a mathematical model we explore the imputed velocity hypothesis and provide a globally fit model that addresses the question of sequences modelling. Our model accounts for observed data in the tau experiment. The accuracy of the model is improved introducing a new hypothesis based on small velocity variations. On the other hand, results show that the imputed velocity hypothesis fails to reproduce the kappa effect. This result definitively shows that both effects are not symmetric.