4. Motion perception

The ability to detect motion is one of the most important properties of our visual system and the visual systems of nearly every other species. Motion perception is not just important for detecting the movement of objects—both for catching prey and for avoiding predators—but it is also important for providing information about the 3-D structure of the world, for maintaining balance, determining our direction of heading, segregating the scene and breaking camouflage, and judging time-to-contact with other objects in the world. ‘Motion perception’ describes the spatio-temporal process of motion perception and the perceptual effects that tell us something about the characteristics of the motion system: apparent motion, the motion after-effect, and induced motion.