Investigating and modeling the perception of self-motion in the presence of independent object motion and the simultaneous perception of object motion with visual and non-visual cues

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How do we perceive self-motion in the presence of independently moving objects? Conversely, how do we perceive object motion during self-motion? Much research has centered on one of these two related but opposing questions but very few studies have examined them together. It has been shown that the perception of the direction of self-motion (i.e., heading) can still be affected by an independently moving object even though observers can clearly perceive and segregate the object motion from the global image motion of the environment caused by self-motion (i.e., optic flow). Similarly, it has also been reported that the ability to identify scene-relative object movement is not limited by, or yoked to, the ability to perceive heading. This suggests that these two processes might happen at different levels of optic flow processing, but so far, no study has systematically examined this possibility and no computation modeling can capture the observed phenomena. In the current proposed research, we plan to address these questions. First, we will examine under what conditions observers segregate a moving object from the perception of heading. Second, we will examine how observers segregate a moving object from the optic flow/static world. Third, we will examine under what conditions observers combine multiple moving objects into a coherent ensemble and segregate it from the perception of heading. Fourth, we will examine how observers segregate multiple moving objects from the optic flow/static world. Last, using a virtual reality setup, we will examine the roles that non-visual information play in the perception of heading in the presence of independent moving objects and the perception of moving object during self-motion. We will computationally model the performance data to develop a comprehensive understanding of how the brain combines multimodal sensory cues for the perception of self-motion in the presence of moving objects and the perception of object motion during self-motion. The findings from the current project can inform the architecture of a model of the underlying neural mechanism responsible for different levels of optic flow processing.