Cooperative self-organization in the perception of coherent motion

A row of dots is presented in a series of alternating frames; dots in each frame are located at the midpoints between dots of the preceding frame. Although the perceived frame-to-frame direction of motion could vary randomly, cooperativity is indicated by the emergence of two coherent motion patterns, one unidirectional, the other oscillatory. Small increases in the time between frames are sufficient for the bias, which maintains the previously established motion direction (unidirectional motion), to be reversed, becoming a bias which inhibits that direction (oscillatory motion). Unidirectional motion, which predominates for small dot separations, and oscillatory motion, which predominates for large separations, are associated with short-range and long-range motion (Braddick, 1974) by manipulating the shape of the dots, their luminance, and the luminance of the inter-frame blank field. Pulsing/flicker emerges as a third perceptual state that competes with unidirectional motion for very small dot separations.