Visual processing of rotary motion

Local descriptions of velocity fields (e.g., rotation, divergence, and deformation) contain a wealth of information for form perception and ego motion. In spite of this, human psychophysical performance in estimating these entities has not yet been thoroughly examined. In this paper, we report on the visual discrimination of rotary motion. A sequence of image frames is used to elicit an apparent rotation of an annulus, composed of dots in the frontoparallel plane, around a fixation spot at the center of the annulus. Differential angular velocity thresholds are measured as a function of the angular velocity, the diameter of the annulus, the number of dots, the display time per frame, and the number of frames. The results show a U-shaped dependence of angular velocity discrimination on spatial scale, with minimal Weber fractions of 7%. Experiments with a scatter in the distance of the individual dots to the center of rotation demonstrate that angular velocity cannot be assessed directly; perceived angular velocity depends strongly on the distance of the dots relative to the center of rotation. We suggest that the estimation of rotary motion is mediated by local estimations of linear velocity.