Click on the video above to see how the dots create a sense of moving forward straight ahead, to the right, and to the left.

(Photo Credit: University of Rochester)

This video shows how adding randomly moving dots, or visual “noise,” makes visual motion cues much harder for your brain to interpret, until the noise is removed toward the end of the video. Using segments of these animations, the study found that individual neurons are responsible for the brain’s complex ability to shift between different sensory signals depending on which are more reliable.

(Photo Credit: University of Rochester)