Information for perceiving blurry events: Optic flow and color are additive

Information used in visual event perception includes both static image structure projected from opaque object surfaces and dynamic optic flow generated by motion. Events presented in static blurry grayscale displays have been shown to be recognized only when and after presented with optic flow. In this study, we investigate the effects of optic flow and color on identifying blurry events by studying the identification accuracy and eye-movement patterns. Three types of color displays were tested: grayscale, original colors, or rearranged colors (where the RGB values of the original colors were adjusted). In each color condition, participants identified 12 blurry events in five experimental phases. In the first two phases, static blurry images were presented alone or sequentially with a motion mask between consecutive frames, and identification was poor. In Phase 3, where optic flow was added, identification was comparably good. In Phases 4 and 5, motion was removed, but identification remained good. Thus, optic flow improved event identification during and after its presentation. Color also improved performance, where participants were consistently better at identifying color displays than grayscale or rearranged color displays. Importantly, the effects of optic flow and color were additive. Finally, in both motion and postmotion phases, a significant portion of eye fixations fell in strong optic flow areas, suggesting that participants continued to look where flow was available even after it stopped. We infer that optic flow specified depth structure in the blurry image structure and yielded an improvement in identification from static blurry images.