VISUAL BRIDGING OF EMPTY GAPS IN THE OPTIC FLOW

This is a study of perception of bending motion and jointed rigid moti ons over large invisible segments of a bending line. In this project, we investigated the visual perception of changing form of lines, built up by a series of dots and presented under highly reduced pictorial c onditions. The changing form was indicated by one pr two moving and co ntinuously changing visible fragments of the line. The most extreme co ndition studied was the perception of the bending of an initially vert ical 24-dot line, visually represented only by the stationary base dot and the two moving dots at its top. In this experiment, nearly all su bjects reported experiencing a smooth bending connection over the 21-d ot empty gap. Three experiments are described and analyzed. The result s suggest that the human visual system is astonishingly well adapted f or derivation of relevant figural information from such severely reduc ed, continuously changing optical presentation. An explanation in term s of automatic sensory mechanisms related to the physiological recepti ve field effect is proposed.