Model for the extraction of image flow.

A model is presented, consonant with current views regarding the neurophysiology and psychophysics of motion perception, that combines the outputs of a set of spatiotemporal motion-energy filters to extract optical flow. The output velocity is encoded as the peak in a distribution of velocity-tuned units that behave much like cells of the middle temporal area of the primate brain. The model appears to deal with the aperture problem as well as the human visual system since it extracts the correct velocity for patterns that have large differences in contrast at different spatial orientations, and it simulates psychophysical data on the coherence of sine-grating plaid patterns.