Misdirected visual motion in the peripheral visual field.

An object moving against a textured background is accurately perceived when viewed foveally, but when viewed peripherally the object's perceived direction of motion may deviate from veridical by as much as 90 deg. The illusory direction is oblique to the orientation of the background contours, which may themselves be moving or stationary. In several experiments, we examined the boundary conditions for occurrence of the illusion and tested hypotheses concerning its basis. This illusion of perceived direction dramatizes differences in motion processing between the fovea and the periphery.