Abstract
A number of studies have demonstrated factors affecting perceptual dominance and suppression of stimuli during binocular rivalry. These include stimulus strength, context, complexity and attention affecting the dominance of visual percepts. Here we report whether emotional information has an impact upon the dynamics of binocular rivalry. In Experiment 1 we have shown that an emotional facial expression (fearful or happy) in the background of a rivalry display is not sufficient to promote the predominance of an associated foreground stimulus, while Experiment 2 revealed that when emotional and neutral faces are presented dichoptically, without being associated with other stimuli, expressive faces predominate. To rule out a response bias as an explanation for the results, Experiment 3 examined dominance periods of fearful and neutral faces presented as face-house composites and showed that fearful faces persisted longer than neutral faces. These results indicate that emotional meaning can modulate binocular rivalry.