Previous Form Information Has Effects On Heading Perception From Optic Flow

In 1950,American psychologist James Gibson first proposed the concept of "optic flow",that is,objective objects in the surrounding environment can form a dynamic projection with a radial shape when projected onto the observer’s retina.It helps the observer to obtain rich information about the surrounding environment,and also contains the observer’s own motion information.Optic flow and form(such as motion stripes)information often appear together as people move through the environment.Previous studies have shown that people optimize and integrate the reliability of simultaneously presented form information and optic flow information to judge selfmotion direction.Recent studies have found that the influence of the previous headings on the current heading perception.In this paper,the influence of previous form information on the current heading perception is studied by presenting form and optic flow successively.It is mainly carried out from two aspects.First of all,it is found that the occurrence mechanism of information integration is controversial through previous studies.Therefore,the three experiments in Study 1 of this paper explore the influence of previously presented form information on heading perception form optic flow through the condition of presenting form information and the baseline condition.The condition of form information is to present form information and optic flow successively.Form information may be perceptual load or perceptual + working memory load.The baseline condition does not present form information.In experiment 1,the form information is perceived load,and whether the influence of the previous form information on the perception of self-motion direction occurs in the perceptual stage is discussed.In experiment 2,the form information is the memory task load,and whether the influence of the previous form information on the self-motion direction perception based on optic flow occurs in the post-perception stage is discussed.Since in experiment 1,the subjects may remember the form information,the perceptivity of the form information cannot be ensured.Therefore,experiment 3 revalidates the results of experiment 1 and Experiment 2.Secondly,we find that previous studies suggest that the observer’s heading perception is affected by the reliability of optic flow.Therefore,Experiment 4 and Experiment 5of Study 2 explored how subjects’ heading perception affected when the reliability of optic flow was reduced by changing the reliability of optical flow stimulus.It turns out that both perceptual load and working memory load.The heading perception will be biased to the previous form information(Focus of Expansion;Fo E).Moreover,there is no significant difference in the magnitude of bias between perceptual load and working memory + perceptual load.The conclusions are as follows:(1)The previous form information has an attractive sequence-dependent effect on the heading perception form optic flow;(2)The attraction of previous form information occurs in the perceptual stage,but not in the post-perceptual stage;(3)The bias amplitude of heading perception to previous form information form optic flow is not affected by the reliability of optic flow,which is inconsistent with the Bayesian theory that with the increase of stimulus uncertainty,the brain increasingly relies on prior knowledge to make responses.The results of this paper demonstrate for the first time that heading perception form optic flow not only depends on the current optic flow information,but also needs to integrate the previous form information.At the same time,it also shows that the previous integration of form information and optic flow information occurs in the perceptual stage,which provides a new research direction for further heading perception form optic flow.