How can we tell how fast things are moving?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-04-22 09:01

Australia; International; NSW

Photo by Qijin Xu on Unsplash

Our ears and our eyes work in different ways to figure out how fast things are moving around us, according to Australian and international researchers. The team recruited 21 people and showed them videos and audio representing objects moving at different speeds, and asked them to estimate the speed of the objects. The researchers say when listening for speed, the participants tended to rely more on general, long-term expectations. Judging the speed of visuals was more complex, they say, with the participants more likely to develop short-term biases from recent experiences. The researchers say a better understanding of how we use our different senses to pick up speed could help improve technologies that aim to mimic that human skill.

News release

From: The Royal Society

Local and global influence of contextual information: insight from auditory and visual speed perception

Royal Society Open Science

How does our brain estimate how fast things are moving? This study demonstrates that both long-term expectations and recent experiences influence our perception of motion, but in distinct ways, depending on whether we use vision or audition. Auditory speed judgments tend to rely more on general expectations, while visual judgments show more complex, short-term biases. These findings suggest that the brain uses different strategies to stabilize perception depending on the sensory modality. Understanding these mechanisms could help improve technologies involving motion perception, from virtual reality to assistive devices.

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Research The Royal Society, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends

Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Sydney

Funder: This work is funded by the European Union Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie-2021-PF-01 (FLEX-U; agreement no. 101064748) and ERC advanced grant agreement GenPercept (agreement no. 832813). Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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