The Role of Peripheral Vision in Flow Parsing

ii Summary Identifying moving objects while we are moving is an important everyday skill. This ability allows us to monitor our surroundings, successfully interact with objects or people, and avoid potential hazards. Self-movement generates optical flow on the retina that complicates the recognition of moving objects from retinal motion alone. Rushton and Warren (2005) proposed a purely visual solution to this problem. They suggest that, in order to assess scene-relative object movement, the brain identifies and parses out (globally subtracts) patterns of visual flow that are consistent with self-movement. Existing research has demonstrated evidence of this flow parsing process in central vision (i.e. Warren & Rushton, 2008). This thesis aims to characterise the role of peripheral visual flow in this process. Research from the wider self-motion literature has often distinguished between central and peripheral vision. Some researchers have claimed tha