Modest effect of knowledge on bistable perception of structure-from-motion.

Autor: Zhang B; Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, 316 Physics Rd, East Lansing 48823, MI, United States. Electronic address: zhangb42@msu.edu., Brascamp JW; Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, 316 Physics Rd, East Lansing 48823, MI, United States. Electronic address: brascamp@msu.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Vision research [Vision Res] 2022 Dec; Vol. 201, pp. 108118. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Sep 01.
DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2022.108118
Abstrakt: When faced with ambiguous visual input, observers may experience various perceptual interpretations of the same input. Indeed, such input can cause perception to unpredictably switch between interpretations over time. Theories of such so-called multistable perception broadly fall into two categories: top-down theories that emphasize dependence on higher-level cognitive factors such as knowledge, and bottom-up theories that suggest more vital involvement of aspects of lower-order information processing such as adaptation in the visual system. Most present-day accounts hold that both factors play a role, so that perceptual reversals arise inevitably due to factors like adaptation, yet can be delayed or hastened by higher-level cognitive influences. We revisited a body of work that shows the occurrence of perceptual reversals to depend dramatically on the observer's knowledge that the input is, indeed, ambiguous: without such knowledge many observers in that work did not experience any reversals, in apparent conflict with the idea that reversals are inevitable. We used an ambiguous animation that allowed subjects to report perceptual reversals without realizing the ambiguity. We found that subjects who were aware of the animation's ambiguity reported slightly more perceptual reversals than uninformed subjects, but that this between-group difference was small, and was overshadowed by inter-observer variability within each group. These findings suggest that knowledge of ambiguity can influence perception of ambiguous stimuli, but only mildly, in keeping with most present-day accounts. We discuss potential explanations for the discrepancy with the earlier work.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: