Abstract
This study was concerned with the breakdown of long-range stroboscopic apparent motion, that is, the cessation of the experience of movement between two sources previously seen in continuous apparent motion. In the first three experiments, the conditions under which breakdown occurs were delimited. The variables employed in these studies were temporal frequency, spatial separation, stimulus duration, interstimulus interval (ISI), stimulus size, and direction of motion. The results indicated that temporal frequency described the data better than did either duration or ISI, that breakdown occurred more readily for greater spatial separations between stimuli, and that within the limits tested, size was not important. Furthermore, continuous motion was more effective than interrupted unidirectional motion in producing breakdown. The final two experiments dealt with the time course of the breakdown for one temporal frequency over a prolonged observation period, and with adaptation effects within the temporal frequency envelope defining the breakdown effects. The limited amount of temporal-frequency-specific adaptation that could be demonstrated suggested that this envelope could best be thought of as describing a single process.
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This work was completed while the first author was on study leave at Queen’s University in 1983.
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Finlay, D., von Grünau, M. Some experiments on the breakdown effect in apparent motion. Perception & Psychophysics 42, 526–534 (1987). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207984
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207984