Visual perception is usually stable and accurate. However, when the two eyes are simultaneously presented with conflicting stimuli, perception falls into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching between one stimulus and the other every few seconds. Known as binocular rivalry, this visual illusion decouples subjective experience from physical stimulation and provides a unique opportunity to study the neural correlates of consciousness. The temporal properties of this alternating perception have been intensively investigated for decades, yet the relationship between two fundamental properties - the sequence of percepts and the duration of each percept - remains largely unexplored

AJ Noest

AW Freeman

C Wheatstone

Chen Song

CY Kim

DA Leopold

DH Arnold

DH Brainard

F Crick

F Tong

G Rees

G Tononi

H Wilson

Haishan Yao

J Hohwy

J Pearson

JM Wolfe

L Liu

LT Maloney

Mark A. Williams

N Qian

N Tsuchiya

NK Logothetis

O Carter

R Blake

SC Chong

SJ Leat

TJ Andrews

TJ Mueller

WH Ehrenstein

WJ Levelt

X Chen

English

PubMed

Crossref

Duality in Binocular Rivalry: Distinct Sensitivity of Percept Sequence and Percept Duration to Imbalance between Monocular Stimuli

BACKGROUND:Visual perception is usually stable and accurate. However, when the two eyes are simultaneously presented with conflicting stimuli, perception falls into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching between one stimulus and the other every few seconds. Known as binocular rivalry, this visual illusion decouples subjective experience from physical stimulation and provides a unique opportunity to study the neural correlates of consciousness. The temporal properties of this alternating perception have been intensively investigated for decades, yet the relationship between two fundamental properties - the sequence of percepts and the duration of each percept - remains largely unexplored. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Here we examine the relationship between the percept sequence and the percept duration by quantifying their sensitivity to the strength imbalance between two monocular stimuli. We found that the percept sequence is far more susceptible to the stimulus imbalance than does the percept duration. The percept sequence always begins with the stronger stimulus, even when the stimulus imbalance is too weak to cause a significant bias in the percept duration. Therefore, introducing a small stimulus imbalance affects the percept sequence, whereas increasing the imbalance affects the percept duration, but not vice versa. To investigate why the percept sequence is so vulnerable to the stimulus imbalance, we further measured the interval between the stimulus onset and the first percept, during which subjects experienced the fusion of two monocular stimuli. We found that this interval is dramatically shortened with increased stimulus imbalance. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Our study shows that in binocular rivalry, the strength imblanace between monocular stimuli has a much greater impact on the percept sequence than on the percept duration, and increasing this imbalance can accelerate the process responsible for the percept sequence

Directory of Open Access Journals

PLoS ONE

Duality in binocular rivalry: distinct sensitivity of percept sequence and percept duration to imbalance between monocular stimuli.

Background: Visual perception is usually stable and accurate. However, when the two eyes are simultaneously presented

with conflicting stimuli, perception falls into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching between one stimulus and

the other every few seconds. Known as binocular rivalry, this visual illusion decouples subjective experience from physical

stimulation and provides a unique opportunity to study the neural correlates of consciousness. The temporal properties of

this alternating perception have been intensively investigated for decades, yet the relationship between two fundamental

properties - the sequence of percepts and the duration of each percept - remains largely unexplored.

Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we examine the relationship between the percept sequence and the percept

duration by quantifying their sensitivity to the strength imbalance between two monocular stimuli. We found that the

percept sequence is far more susceptible to the stimulus imbalance than does the percept duration. The percept sequence

always begins with the stronger stimulus, even when the stimulus imbalance is too weak to cause a significant bias in the

percept duration. Therefore, introducing a small stimulus imbalance affects the percept sequence, whereas increasing the

imbalance affects the percept duration, but not vice versa. To investigate why the percept sequence is so vulnerable to the

stimulus imbalance, we further measured the interval between the stimulus onset and the first percept, during which

subjects experienced the fusion of two monocular stimuli. We found that this interval is dramatically shortened with

increased stimulus imbalance.

Conclusions/Significance: Our study shows that in binocular rivalry, the strength imblanace between monocular stimuli has

a much greater impact on the percept sequence than on the percept duration, and increasing this imbalance can accelerate

the process responsible for the percept sequence

Song, Chen

Yao, Haishan

Online Research @ Cardiff

Duality in binocular rivalry: distinct sensitivity of percept sequence and percept duration to imbalance between monocular stimuli

Song, C

Yao, H

UCL Discovery

Visual perception is usually stable and accurate. However, when the two eyes are simultaneously presented with conflicting stimuli, perception falls into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching between one stimulus and the other every few seconds. Known as binocular rivalry, this visual illusion decouples subjective experience from physical stimulation and provides a unique opportunity to study the neural correlates of consciousness. The temporal properties of this alternating perception have been intensively investigated for decades, yet the relationship between two fundamental properties - the sequence of percepts and the duration of each percept - remains largely unexplored.Here we examine the relationship between the percept sequence and the percept duration by quantifying their sensitivity to the strength imbalance between two monocular stimuli. We found that the percept sequence is far more susceptible to the stimulus imbalance than does the percept duration. The percept sequence always begins with the stronger stimulus, even when the stimulus imbalance is too weak to cause a significant bias in the percept duration. Therefore, introducing a small stimulus imbalance affects the percept sequence, whereas increasing the imbalance affects the percept duration, but not vice versa. To investigate why the percept sequence is so vulnerable to the stimulus imbalance, we further measured the interval between the stimulus onset and the first percept, during which subjects experienced the fusion of two monocular stimuli. We found that this interval is dramatically shortened with increased stimulus imbalance.Our study shows that in binocular rivalry, the strength imblanace between monocular stimuli has a much greater impact on the percept sequence than on the percept duration, and increasing this imbalance can accelerate the process responsible for the percept sequence

Song Chen

Yao Haishan

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

(1838) On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved, phenomena of binocular vision.

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A primer on binocular rivalry, including current controversies.

Binocular disparity and the perception of depth.

Binocular switch suppression: A new method for persistently rendering the visible ‘invisible’.

Computational evidence for a rivalry hierarchy in vision.

Continuous flash suppression reduces negative afterimages.

Depth of interocular suppression associated with continuous flash suppression, flash suppression, and binocular rivalry.

Discriminating binocular fusion from false fusion.

Exogenous attention and endogenous attention influence initial dominance in binocular rivalry.

Eye preference within the context of binocular functions.

Failure of rivalry at low contrast: Evidence of a suprathreshold binocular summation process.

Fusion and rivalry are dependent on the perceptual meaning of visual stimuli.

Influence of spatial frequency, luminance, and duration on binocular rivalry and abnormal fusion of briefly presented dichoptic stimuli.

Local factors determine the stabilization of monocular ambiguous and binocular rivalry stimuli.

Multistage model for binocular rivalry.

Neural bases of binocular rivalry.

Neural correlates of consciousness in humans.

Onset rivalry: Brief presentation isolates an early independent phase of perceptual competition.

Past trials influence perception of ambiguous motion quartets through pattern completion.

Percept-choice sequences driven by interrupted ambiguous stimuli: A low-level neural model.

Predictive coding explains binocular rivalry: An epistemological review.

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Psychophysical magic: Rendering the visible ‘invisible’.

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Visual motion retards alternations between conflicting perceptual interpretations.

What is rivalling during binocular rivalry?

https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/106733/1/Paper.pdf

Duality in Binocular Rivalry: Distinct Sensitivity of Percept Sequence and Percept Duration to Imbalance between Monocular Stimuli

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Directory of Open Access Journals

Online Research @ Cardiff

UCL Discovery

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

Public Library of Science (PLOS)