Eye dominance alternations in binocular rivalry do not require visual awareness

Artem Platonov; Jeroen Goossens

doi:10.1167/14.11.2

Inhibition of Return without Visual Awareness

Perception ◽

10.1068/v96l0509 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 25 (1_suppl) ◽

pp. 175-175

Author(s):

K Watanabe ◽

S Shimojo

Keyword(s):

Reaction Time ◽

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Inhibition Of Return ◽

Visual Awareness ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Horizontal Line ◽

Vertical Segment ◽

Line Segments ◽

Eye Dominance ◽

The Right

When a cue and a target are successively presented at the same location, reaction times to discriminate the location of the target are longer than when they are at different locations (inhibition of return: IOR). We found that visual awareness of the cue was not necessary for IOR to occur. Both eyes dichoptically viewed 9 × 9 scattered arrays of vertical or horizontal line segments. To avoid effects of eye dominance and binocular rivalry, cue displays were presented briefly (33, 50, or 200 ms). Three types of cue displays were randomised: (i) no cue: horizontal segments for the left (right) eye and vertical segments for the right (left) eye; subjects perceived scattered binocularly-combined crosses, (ii) binocular (fusible) cue: displays for both eyes had cue elements (a horizontal or vertical segment popping out among orthogonal background segments) and identical interocularly; subjects easily perceived the cue; (iii) dichoptic cue: displays for both eyes had cues at the same location, but all the segments were interocularly orthogonal. Here, because of the brief presentation that horizontal and vertical segments were just combined binocularly, and subjects could see only scattered crosses. Thus, they could not be aware of the cue, which exists at the monocular level. After the cue display disappeared, the target displays [same as the cue display in (ii), but with an independent location of the pop-out target] were presented (ISI=400, 800, or 1200 ms). Reaction time to discriminate location of the target was measured for three subjects who fixated on a fixation point. In our results, IOR took place in conditions (ii) and (iii). This suggests that localisation of the cue occurs without visual awareness, which then leads to IOR.

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No impact of affective person knowledge on visual awareness: Evidence from binocular rivalry and continuous flash suppression.

Emotion ◽

10.1037/emo0000305 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 17 (8) ◽

pp. 1199-1207 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Timo Stein ◽

Caitlyn Grubb ◽

Maria Bertrand ◽

Seh Min Suh ◽

Sara C. Verosky

Keyword(s):

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Visual Awareness ◽

Continuous Flash Suppression

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Single units and conscious vision

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.1998.0333 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 353 (1377) ◽

pp. 1801-1818 ◽

Cited By ~ 227

Author(s):

◽

N. K. Logothetis

Keyword(s):

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Visual Awareness ◽

Physiological Data ◽

Neural Basis ◽

Binocular Fusion ◽

Neural Representations ◽

Multistable Perception ◽

Visual Areas ◽

Psychophysical Studies

Figures that can be seen in more than one way are invaluable tools for the study of the neural basis of visual awareness, because such stimuli permit the dissociation of the neural responses that underlie what we perceive at any given time from those forming the sensory representation of a visual pattern. To study the former type of responses, monkeys were subjected to binocular rivalry, and the response of neurons in a number of different visual areas was studied while the animals reported their alternating percepts by pulling levers. Perception–related modulations of neural activity were found to occur to different extents in different cortical visual areas. The cells that were affected by suppression were almost exclusively binocular, and their proportion was found to increase in the higher processing stages of the visual system. The strongest correlations between neural activity and perception were observed in the visual areas of the temporal lobe. A strikingly large number of neurons in the early visual areas remained active during the perceptual suppression of the stimulus, a finding suggesting that conscious visual perception might be mediated by only a subset of the cells exhibiting stimulus selective responses. These physiological findings, together with a number of recent psychophysical studies, offer a new explanation of the phenomenon of binocular rivalry. Indeed, rivalry has long been considered to be closely linked with binocular fusion and stereopsis, and the sequences of dominance and suppression have been viewed as the result of competition between the two monocular channels. The physiological data presented here are incompatible with this interpretation. Rather than reflecting interocular competition, the rivalry is most probably between the two different central neural representations generated by the dichoptically presented stimuli. The mechanisms of rivalry are probably the same as, or very similar to, those underlying multistable perception in general, and further physiological studies might reveal a much about the neural mechanisms of our perceptual organization.

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Predictive context biases binocular rivalry in children and adults with no positive relation to two measures of social cognition

10.31234/osf.io/qkjty ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Christian Valuch ◽

Louisa Kulke

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Contextual Information ◽

Positive Association ◽

Similar Degree ◽

Eye Dominance ◽

Adult Participants

Integration of prior experience and contextual information can help to resolve perceptually ambiguous situations and might support the ability to understand other peoples’ thoughts and intentions, called Theory of Mind. We studied whether the readiness to incorporate contextual information for resolving binocular rivalry is positively associated with Theory-of-Mind-related social cognitive abilities. In children (12 to 13 years) and adults (18 to 25 years), a predictive temporal context reliably modulated the onset of binocular rivalry to a similar degree. In contrast, adult participants scored better on measures of Theory of Mind compared to children. We observed considerable interindividual differences regarding the influence of a predictive context on binocular rivalry, which were associated with differences in sensory eye dominance. The absence of a positive association between predictive effects on perception and Theory of Mind performance suggests that predictive effects on binocular rivalry and higher-level Theory-of-Mind-related abilities stem from different neurocognitive mechanisms. We conclude that the influence of predictive contextual information on basic visual processes is fully developed at an earlier age, whereas social cognitive skills continue to evolve from adolescence to adulthood.

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Individual Differences in the Tendency to See the Expected

10.31234/osf.io/w3mne ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nora Andermane ◽

Jenny Bosten ◽

Anil Seth ◽

Jamie Ward

Keyword(s):

Factor Analysis ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Attentional Control ◽

Visual Awareness ◽

Facilitatory Effect ◽

Strong Signal ◽

Perceptual Anomalies ◽

Perceptual Abilities ◽

Attentional Mechanism

Prior knowledge has been shown to facilitate the incorporation of visual stimuli into awareness. We adopted an individual differences approach to explore whether a tendency to ‘see the expected’ is general or method-specific. We administered a binocular rivalry task and manipulated selective attention, as well as induced expectations via predictive context, self-generated imagery, expectancy cues, and perceptual priming. Most prior manipulations led to a facilitated awareness of the biased percept in binocular rivalry, whereas strong signal primes led to a suppressed awareness, i.e., adaptation. Correlations and factor analysis revealed that the facilitatory effect of priors on visual awareness is closely related to attentional control. We also investigated whether expectation-based biases predict perceptual abilities. Adaptation to strong primes predicted improved naturalistic change detection and the facilitatory effect of weak primes predicted the experience of perceptual anomalies. Taken together, our results indicate that the facilitatory effect of priors may be underpinned by an attentional mechanism but the tendency to ‘see the expected’ is method-specific.

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Rivalry Onset in and around the Fovea: The Role of Visual Field Location and Eye Dominance on Perceptual Dominance Bias

Vision ◽

10.3390/vision3040051 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 51

Author(s):

Jody Stanley ◽

Jason D. Forte ◽

Olivia Carter

Keyword(s):

Visual Field ◽

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Visual Space ◽

Peripheral Visual Field ◽

Eye Dominance ◽

Initial Onset ◽

Onset Period ◽

Trained Observers ◽

Field Location

When dissimilar images are presented to each eye, the images will alternate every few seconds in a phenomenon known as binocular rivalry. Recent research has found evidence of a bias towards one image at the initial ‘onset’ period of rivalry that varies across the peripheral visual field. To determine the role that visual field location plays in and around the fovea at onset, trained observers were presented small orthogonal achromatic grating patches at various locations across the central 3° of visual space for 1-s and 60-s intervals. Results reveal stronger bias at onset than during continuous rivalry, and evidence of temporal hemifield dominance across observers, however, the nature of the hemifield effects differed between individuals and interacted with overall eye dominance. Despite using small grating patches, a high proportion of mixed percept was still reported, with more mixed percept at onset along the vertical midline, in general, and in increasing proportions with eccentricity in the lateral hemifields. Results show that even within the foveal range, onset rivalry bias varies across visual space, and differs in degree and sensitivity to biases in average dominance over continuous viewing.

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