What primarily governs the perception in the autokinetic effect?

The autokinetic effect refers to a visual phenomenon where a stationary point of light in a dark environment appears to move. This illusion occurs primarily due to the lack of visual references in the surrounding area. When a person observes a point of light in darkness, their eyes attempt to maintain focus, but without surrounding cues to anchor the perception, the brain misinterprets small movements or eye tremors as motion of the light itself.

This effect highlights how our perception can be significantly influenced by contextual factors, particularly the absence of stable reference points that would typically help to ground our visual perception. In real-world situations, when visual references are present, our ability to perceive motion accurately improves because the brain uses those cues to gauge distance and motion. Thus, in the case of the autokinetic effect, it is indeed the lack of visual references that primarily governs this perceptual distortion.