Center–surround effects on perceived speed

We investigated whether center–surround interactions affect perceived speed in a manner similar to their effects on direction discrimination thresholds [e.g. Tadin, D., Lappin, J. S., Gilroy, L. A., & Blake, R. (2003). Perceptual consequences of center–surround antagonism in visual motion processing. Nature, 424, 312–315]. Observers were asked to match the speed of a test stimulus (a grating, with fixed contrast and no surround) to that of a reference stimulus of variable contrast and with a variably sized surround, moving at one of two possible velocities (1 and 12 cps). At 1-cps, both lowering contrast and increasing surround-size resulted in a decrease in perceived speed, except for very low contrast stimuli, where a larger surround resulted in an increase in perceived speed. Although the effect of surround-size was comparable in the two velocity conditions, the effect of contrast was different at 12-cps. That is, in the 12 cps condition, a decrease in perceived speed was observed only for the lowest contrast used. Our results suggest that, at least for the lower velocity used, center–surround interactions affect perceived speed in a manner analogous to their effect on direction discrimination.