Detection of motion is a crucial component of visual processing. To probe the computations underlying motion perception, we created a new class of non-Fourier motion stimuli, characterized by their 3rd- and 4th-order spatiotemporal correlations. As with other non-Fourier stimuli, they lack second-order correlations, and therefore their motion cannot be detected by standard Fourier mechanisms. Additionally, these stimuli lack pairwise spatiotemporal correlation of edges or flicker – and thus, also cannot be detected by extraction of one of these features, followed by standard motion analysis. Nevertheless, many of these stimuli produced apparent motion in human observers. The pattern of responses – i.e., which specific spatiotemporal correlations led to a percept of motion – was highly consistent across subjects.
For many of these stimuli, inverting the overall contrast of the stimulus reversed the direction of apparent motion. This “reverse phi” phenomenon challenges existing models, including models that correlate low-level features and gradient models. Our findings indicate that current knowledge of the computations underlying motion processing is as yet incomplete, and that understanding how high-order spatiotemporal correlations lead to motion percepts will illuminate the computations underlying early motion processing.