Abstract
Introduction
The competitive mechanisms giving rise to binocular rivalry might overlap with selection mechanisms underlying object-based attention (Leopold and Logothetis, 1999). Here we tested whether binocular rivalry between moving stimuli is affected by attention-based long-term modulation of sensitivity for specific motion directions.
Method
On pre- and post training days, observers reported their dominant perception of pairs of rival motion stimuli with different motion directions (right vs. down, left-up vs. down, left-up vs. right). During 5 training days, observers performed a speed discrimination task on rightward (attended) motion, presented simultaneously with downward (neglected) motion (in a bivectorial transparent dot motion display).
Results
Dominance durations of the attended motion direction increased, and those of the neglected motion direction decreased as a result of training. Surprisingly, presenting a control motion direction (the left-up direction which was not present during training) with either the attended or neglected motion direction lead to a training-induced decrease in the dominance durations of the neglected motion that was much larger than the training-induced increase in the dominance durations of the attended motion.
Conclusion
Attention-based long-term modulation of the sensitivity for visual features affects binocular rivalry primarily via decreasing the dominance of the visual information that was task-irrelevant during learning.