Simple-pooling of unidirectional motion predicts speed discrimination for looming stimuli

Looming objects comprise many 2D unidirectional motion elements changing over time. However, observers assign a single 3D speed to looming objects, not many independent unidirectional speeds to different regions of the object. These experiments examined speed discrimination for looming stimuli to illuminate the mechanisms underlying the perception of 3D motion. Speed discrimination thresholds for looming displays were comparable to those of …