Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Binocular rivalry refers to the unstable perceptual experience that arises when an observer views a different image with each eye: Each image reaches awareness in turn as the other becomes temporarily invisible. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we provide the first direct, perceptual evidence that binocular rivalry occurs only in the presence of attention. Observers in our experiment withdrew attention from a binocular rivalry stimulus shortly after one of the eyes’ images was forced to visibility. Seconds later, they shifted attention back to the stimulus to report their perception. For all observers, reported perception strongly and significantly deviated from the results that would be expected if binocular rivalry continued during inattention. Strikingly, reports instead exactly matched those obtained when the stimulus was physically removed for seconds rather than left unattended. These results show that disregarding a binocular rivalry stimulus is equivalent to having it removed from view. Thus, inattention abolishes binocular rivalry.

Keywords

attention perception visual attention binocular rivalry visual perception

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alais

Cass

O’Shea

Blake

(2010). Visual sensitivity underlying changes in visual consciousness. Current Biology, 20, 1362–1367.

Blake

Logothetis

(2002). Visual competition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 13–21.

Blake

Sobel

Gilroy

(2003). Visual motion retards alternations between conflicting perceptual interpretations. Neuron, 39, 869–878.

Brascamp

J. W.

van Ee

Noest

A. J.

Jacobs

R. H. A. H.

van den Berg

A. V.

(2006). The time course of binocular rivalry reveals a fundamental role of noise. Journal of Vision, 6(11), Article 8. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/6/11/8.full?sid=0d36ed94-7bae-4c30-9eec-4afd38615854

Carter

Cavanagh

(2007). Onset rivalry: Brief presentation isolates an early independent phase of perceptual competition. PLoS ONE, 2, e343. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000343

Carter

Pettigrew

(2003). A common oscillator for perceptual rivalries? Perception, 32, 295–305.

Cavanagh

Holcombe

A. O.

(2006). Successive rivalry does not occur without attention [Abstract]. Journal of Vision, 6(6), Article 818. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/6/6/818.abstract?sid=32d6df84-75b4-4701-bfdc-e97690641ffc

Chen

(2003). Temporal characteristics of binocular rivalry: Visual field asymmetries. Vision Research, 43, 2207–2212.

Crick

Koch

(1998). Consciousness and neuroscience. Cerebral Cortex, 8, 97–107.

10.

Dehaene

Changeux

J.-P.

Naccache

Sackur

Sergent

(2006). Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: A testable taxonomy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 204–211.

11.

Desimone

Duncan

(1995). Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 18, 193–222.

12.

Dieter

K. C.

Tadin

(2011). Understanding attentional modulation of binocular rivalry: A framework based on biased competition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 155. Retrieved from http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00155/full

13.

Jiang

Chen

(2007). Stabilizing bistable visual patterns through interocular suppression, crowding, and inattention [Abstract]. Journal of Vision, 7(9), Article 362. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/7/9/362.abstract?sid=13084d8b-e26b-4774-9a4d-7cc3eedc072c

14.

Helmholtz

(1910). Treatise on physiological optics (Vol. 1; Southall

J. P. C.

, Trans.). New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1859)

15.

Knapen

Brascamp

Pearson

van Ee

Blake

(2011). The role of frontal and parietal brain areas in bistable perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 31, 10293–10301.

16.

Lankheet

M. J. M.

(2006). Unraveling adaptation and mutual inhibition in perceptual rivalry. Journal of Vision, 6(4), Article 1. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/6/4/1.full?sid=c8e8cf7d-9b59-41a4-849d-96815d936372

17.

Lee

S.-H.

Blake

Heeger

(2007). Hierarchy of cortical responses underlying binocular rivalry. Nature Neuroscience, 10, 1048–1054.

18.

Leopold

Logothetis

(1999). Multistable phenomena: Changing views in perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 254–264.

19.

Levelt

W. J. M.

(1967). Note on the distribution of dominance times in binocular rivalry. British Journal of Psychology, 58, 143–145.

20.

Liu

Tyler

C. W.

Schor

(1992). Failure of rivalry at low contrast: Evidence of a suprathreshold binocular summation process. Vision Research, 32, 1471–1479.

21.

Lumer

Friston

Rees

(1998). Neural correlates of perceptual rivalry in the human brain. Science, 280, 1930–1934.

22.

Mack

Rock

(1999). Inattentional blindness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

23.

Mitchell

Stoner

Reynolds

(2004). Object-based attention determines dominance in binocular rivalry. Nature, 429, 410–413.

24.

Moradi

Heeger

D. J.

(2009). Inter-ocular contrast normalization in human visual cortex. Journal of Vision, 9(3), Article 13. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/9/3/13.full

25.

Moreno-Bote

Rinzel

Rubin

(2007). Noise-induced alternations in an attractor network model of perceptual bistability. Journal of Neurophysiology, 98, 1125–1139.

26.

Ooi

T. L.

Z. J.

(1999). Binocular rivalry and visual awareness: The role of attention. Perception, 28, 551–574.

27.

Paffen

C. L. E.

Alais

(2011). Attentional modulation of binocular rivalry. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 105. Retrieved from http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00105/full

28.

Paffen

C. L. E.

Alais

Verstraten

F. A. J.

(2006). Attention speeds binocular rivalry. Psychological Science, 17, 752–756.

29.

Paffen

C. L. E.

Van der Stigchel

(2010). Shifting spatial attention makes you flip: Exogenous visual attention triggers perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72, 1237–1243.

30.

Pastukhov

Braun

(2007). Perceptual reversals need no prompting by attention. Journal of Vision, 7(10), Article 5. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/7/10/5.full?sid=d8a9371e-c64e-4183-a35d-0af6d48d3a37

31.

Reynolds

Heeger

(2009). The normalization model of attention. Neuron, 61, 168–185.

32.

Sanchez-Vives

Nowak

McCormick

(2000). Membrane mechanisms underlying contrast adaptation in cat area 17 in vivo. Journal of Neuroscience, 20, 4267–4285.

33.

Sengpiel

Blakemore

Harrad

(1995). Interocular suppression in the primary visual cortex: A possible neural basis of binocular rivalry. Vision Research, 35, 179–195.

34.

Stanley

Carter

Forte

(2011). Color and luminance influence, but can not explain, binocular rivalry onset bias. PLoS ONE, 6, e18978. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018978

35.

Sterzer

Kleinschmidt

Rees

(2009). The neural bases of multistable perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13, 310–318.

36.

Van Boxtel

Tsuchiya

Koch

. (2010). Consciousness and attention: On sufficiency and necessity. Frontiers in Psychology, 1, 1–13.

37.

Van Dam

L. C.

Van Ee

. (2006). Retinal image shifts, but not eye movements per se, cause alternations in awareness during binocular rivalry. Journal of Vision, 6(11), Article 3. Retrieved from http://www.journalofvision.org/content/6/11/3.full

38.

Wilson

(2007). Minimal physiological conditions for binocular rivalry and rivalry memory. Vision Research, 47, 2741–2750.

39.

Wolfe

(1984). Reversing ocular dominance and suppression in a single flash. Vision Research, 24, 471–478.

40.

Zhang

Jamison

Engel

(2011). Binocular rivalry requires visual attention. Neuron, 71, 362–369.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.14 MB

0.96 MB

Inattention Abolishes Binocular Rivalry

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material