Paradoxical stabilization of relative position in moving frames

Significance Every eye movement drags the visual scene over our retinas and yet nothing appears to move. We now report a small-scale version of this visual stability with a square frame moving on a monitor in a well-lit room. Probes flashed before and after the frame’s motion are also stabilized in the frame’s coordinates—as if the frame were stationary—shifting perceived locations by up to half the screen’s width from their physical locations. Paradoxically, with these small frames, this ∼100% stabilization occurs despite visible frame motion. Unlike motion-induced position shifts, frame-induced shifts are independent of speed and depend instead on the distance the frame travels. This powerful discounting of motion may reveal a critical component of visual stability.