THE human visual system is much better at analysing the motion of luminance (black and white) patterns than it is at analysing the motion of colour patterns(1-4), especially if the pattern is presented very briefly(5) or moves rapidly(6). We report here that observers reliably distinguish the direction of motion of a colour pattern presented for only 17 milliseconds, provided that the contrast is several times the threshold value (the contrast needed to detect the presence of the pattern). A control experiment, in which a static luminance ’mask’ is added to the moving colour pattern, proves that discrimination of the direction of motion of these brief stimuli is colour-specific. The mask drastically impairs discrimination of the direction of motion of a luminance pattern, but it has little effect on a colour pattern. We conclude that the human visual system contains colour-specific motion-detection mechanisms that are capable of analysing very brief signals.