Seeing versus imagining movement in depth.

Six undergraduate students participated in 2 experiments to determine whether the same mechanisms are activated during perception of real vs apparent motion. In Exp 1, Ss judged the quality of rigid motion between pairs of 3-dimensional drawings that differed by a rotation in depth. Rated quality of motion decreased with increasing angular disparity between the figures and with decreasing stimulus duration, regardless of whether the figures were vertical or oblique. In Exp 2, Ss participated in a mental rotation task using the same stimuli and angular disparities. Ss took longer to make decisions about obliquely aligned than vertically aligned stimuli. Results imply that perceived vs imagined movement through the same trajectory involves different processes. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)