Perceiving direction of deformation-based motion

In dynamic visual scenes, many materials-including cloth, jelly-like bodies, and flowing liquids-undergo non-rigid deformations that convey information about their physical state. Among such cues, we focus on deformation-based motion-defined as the spatial shifts of image deformation. Studying deformation-based motion is essential because it lies at the intersection of motion perception and material perception. This study examines how two fundamental properties-spatial frequency and displacement speed-jointly shape the perception of deformation-based motion. We focused on these parameters because, in luminance-based motion perception, spatial frequency and displacement speed have been shown to critically influence motion sensitivity. Across three experiments using sequentially deformed 1/f noise images as a neutral background, we systematically manipulated the spatial frequency components of the deformation and the speed at which these deformations were displaced. Results showed that direction discrimination performance was strongly modulated by the interaction between spatial frequency and displacement speed. Suppressing local deformation cues improved discrimination at low frequencies, suggesting that local signals may interfere with global motion inference. These findings reveal how the spatial structure and dynamics of image deformation constrain motion perception and provide insights into how the brain interprets dynamic visual information from non-rigid materials.