A new visual illusion: flickering fields are localized in a depth plane behind nonflickering fields.

Abstract

Flickering regions of the visual field are perceived to lie well behind regions which are not flickered. The depth segregation is not due to luminance differences since the average temporal luminance across all the regions was equal. This depth effect produced by flicker is not dependent on the texture of the visual field; nor does it depend on a specific configuration of the flickering and nonflickering areas. It is optimal at a temporal frequency around 6 Hz, which suggests that visual channels responding maximally to high temporal frequencies are involved in the segregation of perceptual regions in depth.