Abstract
Spatio-temporal as well as feature information play an important role for establishing object correspondence, i.e., determine how new information is integrated into existing object representations. It is unclear, however, how these two factors interact and why their influence can be found to be more or less strong. Here, we investigated if the learning context can influence this process. We used the Ternus display, an ambiguous apparent motion, in which three elements can be perceived as moving independently (element motion) or together as a group (group motion). Which percept is seen depends on how correspondence has been resolved. In a first phase we manipulated the learning context by showing two groups of participants different types of Ternus displays: for group one we manipulated the spatio-temporal information by modifying the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the Ternus elements, while for group two we kept the ISI constant and manipulated the feature information of the Ternus elements, using differently colored elements to bias the percept either towards group or element motion. In a second phase we showed both groups the same Ternus displays, for which the ISI as well as the feature bias was manipulated. Participants were asked in both phases to indicate whether they perceived element or group motion. If the learning context influences correspondence, we expected that participants would learn which factor is more meaningful to determine correspondence and thus to find different pattern of results for both groups in phase two, despite the displays being identical. In particular, for group one the ISI should have a stronger effect while for group two the feature bias should be stronger. This is exactly what we found, suggesting that which factor is more important for solving object correspondence – spatio-temporal or feature information – can be influenced by the learning context.