Rotational snapping: Illusory rhythmicity induced by global and local motion binding

SUMMARY The complexity of human perceptual system has often been investigated through its atypical function; the illusion. Here, I introduce a new visual illusion induced by rotational motion binding, which leads to a gestalt perception of illusory object rhythmically popping out and fading away. In this illusion, observers reported non-existing rhythm out of rotating Gabor patches ( e.g ., local rotation) that also have orbital trajectory with opposite direction ( e.g ., global rotation), only under the particular combinations of parameters. This illusory rhythmicity was four times faster than the average of global/local rotational speed. Image reconstruction using the response-triggered average revealed the rhythmicity is explained by the circular alignment of array, demonstrating the effect of repeated contour integration and its perceptual consequences.