Frame Effects Across Space and Time

When two probes are flashed at different times within a moving frame they can be perceived as dramatically separated from each other even though they are at the same location in the display. This effect suggests that we perceive object position relative to the surrounding frame even when it is moving (Özkan et al., 2021). Here, 8 experiments reveal new properties of this frame effect. First, the influence of the frame on the perceived probe positions extends beyond its bounding contours by several degrees of visual angle, both in the direction of the frame’s motion and in the direction orthogonal to the motion. It is also undiminished when the probes and the frame are in different depth planes. Unlike the spread of the effect in space, the influence of the frame’s motion shows no extension in time – there is no the effect on probes presented after the frame is removed and none retroactively before the frame appears either. The frame’s effect is also driven primarily by the displacement of the frame, not by its motion signals: the effect is stronger for moving bounded frames compared to moving, unbounded random-dot textures. When the bounded region has an internal texture that moves with or against the frame’s motion or remains static, it is the displacement of the frame that produces the perceived position shifts of the probes, while the effect of the internal motion is mostly suppressed. The frame’s influence is unaffected by whether the motion is self-initiated or not and does not reduce in strength across 2 hours of testing.