Abstract
AbstractSince motion can only be defined relative to a reference frame, which reference frame guides perception? A century of psychophysical studies has produced conflicting evidence: retinotopic, egocentric, world-centric, or even object-centric. We introduce a hierarchical Bayesian model mapping retinal velocities to perceived velocities. Our model mirrors the structure in the world, in which visual elements move within causally connected reference frames. Friction renders velocities in these reference frames mostly stationary, formalized by an additional delta component (at zero) in the prior. Inverting this model automatically segments visual inputs into groups, groups into supergroups, etc. and “perceives” motion in the appropriate reference frame. Critical model predictions are supported by two new experiments, and fitting our model to the data allows us to infer the subjective set of reference frames used by individual observers. Our model provides a quantitative normative justification for key Gestalt principles providing inspiration for building better models of visual processing in general.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Reference57 articles.
1. Luigi Acerbi , Wei Ji Ma , and Sethu Vijayakumar . A framework for testing identifiability of bayesian models of perception. Advances in neural information processing systems, 27, 2014.
2. Bayesian comparison of explicit and implicit causal inference strategies in multisensory heading perception;PLOS Computational Biology,2018
3. Spatiotemporal energy models for the perception of motion;Journal of the Optical Society of America A,1985
4. Some informational aspects of visual perception.
5. Possible principles underlying the transformation of sensory messages;Sensory communication,1961