Abstract
There is mixed evidence regarding whether motion-induced blindness (MIB) and binocular rivalry (BR) may share a common mechanism based on comparisons of their respective temporal perceptual switching dynamics. To address this inconsistency, we examined both spatial and temporal dynamics of perceptual switching in MIB to determine whether they resemble those in binocular rivalry. Perceptual transitions in binocular rivalry are commonly experienced as traveling waves of dominance and suppression. Traveling waves of dominance and suppression begin locally and gradually expand as stimulus visibility or invisibility spreads over remaining portions of a stimulus across space and time, respectively. Traveling waves in BR also exhibit collinear facilitative effects as indicated by briefer perceptual transitions for collinear-patterned stimuli in comparison to those with radial patterns. If MIB and BR share a common mechanism, perceptual transitions in MIB should not only occur in a gradual manner across space and time, but visibility transitions should occur more efficiently for collinear- in comparison to radial-patterned MIB target stimuli. Participants viewed a display consisting of a rotating grid of black crosses on a grey background and a static arc-shaped target with a radial- or collinear-patterned internal configuration. In each trial, participants held a key once a target was fully suppressed by MIB, which triggered target reappearance via a transient contrast change at the ending portions of the target. We found that collinear-patterned MIB targets completely disappeared and reappeared with briefer latencies in comparison to those of radial-patterned targets. This result indicates the common spatiotemporal dynamics of perceptual transitions in MIB and BR, which suggests that these phenomena indeed share a common mechanism.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016