Perceived motion of a colored spot in a noisy achromatic background

It is shown that human observers can use color both for detecting and for discriminating motion. The contributions of chromaticity and luminance to the detection and discrimination of motion are investigated with a high-contrast, nonisoluminant stimulus. The motion stimulus is a rectangular 'particle' defined by its luminance and chromaticity, which moves against a background containing luminance noise. Although the luminance noise is found to make achromatic particles undetectable over a large range of luminances, the addition of color to a particle can render it detectable and also enable accurate speed discriminations to be made. The contributions of both luminance and chromaticity were measured. The effect of changing the hue angle of the particle as it moves was also examined, and it was found that the detectability of motion is low in that circumstance.