No evidence that individual alpha frequency (IAF) represents a mechanism underlying motion-position illusions

Abstract

Motion-Position Illusions (MPIs) involve the position of an object being misperceived in the context of motion (i.e. when the object contains motion, is surrounded by motion, or is moving). A popular MPI is the flash-lag effect, where a static object briefly presented in spatiotemporal alignment with a moving object, is perceived in a position behind the moving object. Recently, Cottier et al. (2023) observed that there are stable individual differences in the magnitude of these illusions, and possibly even their direction. To investigate the possible neural correlates of these individual differences, the present study explored whether a trait-like component of brain activity, individual alpha frequency (IAF), could predict individual illusion magnitude. Previous reports have found some correlations between IAF and perceptual tasks. Participants (N=61) viewed the flash-lag effect (motion and luminance), Frohlich effect, flash-drag effect, flash-grab effect, motion-induced position shift, twinkle-goes effect, and the flash-jump effect. In a separate session, five minutes of eyes-open and eyes-closed resting state EEG data was recorded. Correlation analyses revealed no evidence for a correlation between IAF and the magnitude of any MPIs. Overall, these results suggest that IAF does not represent a mechanism underlying MPIs, and that no single shared mechanism underlies these effects. This suggests that discrete sampling at alpha frequency is unlikely to be responsible for any of these illusions.