Multi-timescale perceptual history resolves visual ambiguity.

ABSTRACT: When visual input is inconclusive, does previous experience aid the visual system in attaining an accurate perceptual interpretation? Prolonged viewing of a visually ambiguous stimulus causes perception to alternate between conflicting interpretations. When viewed intermittently, however, ambiguous stimuli tend to evoke the same percept on many consecutive presentations. This perceptual stabilization has been suggested to reflect persistence of the most recent percept throughout the blank that separates two presentations. Here we show that the memory trace that causes stabilization reflects not just the latest percept, but perception during a much longer period. That is, the choice between competing percepts at stimulus reappearance is determined by an elaborate history of prior perception

SUBMITTER: Brascamp JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2204053 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature