Human vision maintains a rich representation of objects moving behind an occluder

Vision may seem continuous, but it is frequently disrupted, by internal processes, such as blinks and fast eye-movements, and by external foreground clutter obscuring background objects. Yet when a bicycle passes behind a bush, we maintain a strong sense that it has not vanished, but persists, continuing its unseen motion. Using an indirect probe technique, we show that the visual system maintains, for at least 1 s, a rich perceptual representation of objects moving behind occluders. We created the impression of two disks moving behind a visible occluder, and after 1 s participants judged the colour of a probe disk flashed briefly between their virtual trajectories. The perceived colour of the test was strongly biased towards that of the inducers, showing colour assimilation . Our results show that the visual system maintains, at an early perceptual level, a relatively rich representation of temporally occluded objects, mapping their spatio-temporal trajectories, and storing information about sensory properties such as colour. © 2026 The Authors.