Review
Resolving visual motion through perceptual gaps

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Highlights

  • Perceptual gaps occur frequently due to eyeblinks and occlusion.

  • Processing information through perceptual gaps is particularly challenging for moving stimuli, as dynamic information changes while the object is briefly out of sight.

  • Our perceptual experience suggests that stimulus information such as position is maintained throughout the gap.

  • Suppression, extrapolation, and integration all play a role in representing visual motion through perceptual gaps.

Perceptual gaps can be caused by objects in the foreground temporarily occluding objects in the background or by eyeblinks, which briefly but frequently interrupt visual information. Resolving visual motion across perceptual gaps is particularly challenging, as object position changes during the gap. We examine how visual motion is maintained and updated through externally driven (occlusion) and internally driven (eyeblinks) perceptual gaps. Focusing on both phenomenology and potential mechanisms such as suppression, extrapolation, and integration, we present a framework for how perceptual gaps are resolved over space and time. We finish by highlighting critical questions and directions for future work.

Section snippets

The challenge of processing motion through perceptual gaps

Incoming visual information is often interrupted by externally and internally driven events such as occlusion (see Glossary) and eyeblinks, producing perceptual gaps (Figure 1). For example, cars moving on a highway are often fully or partially occluded by other traffic. Similarly, eyeblinks, which can occur 15–20 times per min [1] and may last for up to 500 ms [2,3], prevent visual information from reaching the brain. One way of bridging these perceptual gaps is to bias perception towards the

The neural substrates of motion processing

Both physical and illusory motion processing can potentially inform our understanding of how visual motion is resolved through perceptual gaps. Before and after the perceptual gap, the object moves visibly along a motion trajectory. Processing physical motion before the gap informs predictions about the object’s position during the gap. Furthermore, physical motion after the gap can reinforce the perception of an object trajectory retrospectively. Maintenance of a motion trajectory before and

The phenomenology of perceptual gaps

In natural vision, perceptual gaps are frequent, but these interruptions do not break the perceived continuity of motion trajectories. For eyeblinks in particular, it has been suggested that the perception of continuity is supported by both the suppression of the visual consequences of an eyeblink [3] and an underestimation of the eyeblink duration [47., 48., 49., 50.]. In eyeblink suppression, efference copy may trigger preparation for the visual consequences of closing the eyelid by lowering

Where is object information maintained during perceptual gaps?

Multiple motion-sensitive cortical regions have been implicated in maintaining representations during perceptual gaps. Similar to representations during apparent motion [83,84], position-specific information has been shown to be represented in the early visual cortex during perceptual gaps [85., 86., 87.]. In one fMRI study [87], participants viewed an object moving on a circular trajectory that was dynamically occluded in one quadrant. Within retinotopically defined areas of V1, V2, and V3

Concluding remarks

Resolving visual information through perceptual gaps is a fundamental part of everyday vision, as eyeblinks and occlusion occur frequently. Here, we highlighted why moving stimuli pose a particular challenge to bridging perceptual gaps and showed that mechanisms such as suppression, extrapolation, and integration are important to update visual motion through periods of occlusion and eyeblinks.

Generally, the maintenance and updating of motion information occurs automatically and without

Acknowledgments

L.T., G.E., and C.I.B. are supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIMH (ZIAMH002909). The authors thank Marianne Duyck and Eli Merriam for providing helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Declaration of interests

No interests are declared.

Glossary

Accidental contours
true object contours mark the shape of an object. By contrast, accidental contours are created by objects being partially occluded, generating a new contour where the objects intersect.
Apparent motion
the impression of movement produced by the rapid succession of still objects in different locations.
Blink suppression
suppression of the experience of an eyeblink and the sensory input prior and during the eyeblink to support continuous visual perception throughout eyeblinks.

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