Does visual attention drive the dynamics of bistable perception?

Abstract

How does attention interact with incoming sensory information to determine what we perceive? One domain in which this question has received serious consideration is that of bistable perception: a captivating class of phenomena that involves fluctuating visual experience in the face of physically unchanging sensory input. Here, some investigations have yielded support for the idea that attention alone determines what is seen, while others have implicated entirely attention-independent processes in driving alternations during bistable perception. We review the body of literature addressing this divide and conclude that in fact both sides are correct – depending on the form of bistable perception being considered. Converging evidence suggests that visual attention is required for alternations in the type of bistable perception called binocular rivalry, while alternations during other types of bistable perception appear to continue without requiring attention. We discuss some implications of this differential effect of attention for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying bistable perception, and examine how these mechanisms operate during our everyday visual experiences.

Attention periodically samples competing stimuli during binocular rivalry

“…Our results clearly show additional dependence on the top-down deployment of attention, as without explicit instruction to attend to crossmodal signals, no facilitatory crossmodal effects emerged (Supplementary Figure 2; see alsoJack & Hacker, 2014;Talsma, Senkowski, Soto-Faraco, & Woldorff, 2010;van Ee et al, 2009). This interaction between low-level stimulus features (temporal frequency) and the allocation of attention indicates the facilitative role of both crossmodal stimuli(Deroy et al, 2016;Deroy, Chen, & Spence, 2014) and attention for perceptual transitions during binocular rivalry(Dieter, Brascamp, Tadin, & Blake, 2016;Dieter & Tadin, 2011;Paffen & Alais, 2011;Zhang, Hong, Gao, Gao, & Röder, 2011).…”

Perceptual training profoundly alters binocular rivalry through both sensory and attentional enhancements

“…This is puzzling given that visual attention typically has its strongest effects in cases of visual competition (11), which notably include other, ostensibly related bistable stimuli [e.g., the Necker cube (3); apparent motion (12); structure from motion (13)]. Moreover, attention even appears necessary for rivalry fluctuations to occur (14)(15)(16), which makes the relative resistance of binocular rivalry to attentional modulation even more perplexing. Here, we address this apparent contradiction by asking whether the effects of attention on binocular rivalry dynamics could be enhanced through targeted perceptual learning.…”

Attention model of binocular rivalry

“…(ii) Mutual inhibition: In the model, mutual inhibition is mediated through opponency neurons (20). The opponency neurons take conflicting information between two eyes as inputs and suppress the activity of monocular neurons that respond to one or the other eye.We show that the model exhibits three experimental hallmarks of binocular rivalry: (i) Rivalry (i.e., response alternations between two competing neural representations) occurs for attended stimuli with interocular conflict, but not without interocular conflict and not for unattended stimuli (12,(14)(15)(16). (ii) When the stimuli are rapidly swapped back and forth between the two eyes, the simulated percept either follows one image across the swapping or it follows the stimuli in one eye, depending on the temporal characteristics of the stimuli (21-24).…”

“…We show that the model exhibits three experimental hallmarks of binocular rivalry: (i) Rivalry (i.e., response alternations between two competing neural representations) occurs for attended stimuli with interocular conflict, but not without interocular conflict and not for unattended stimuli (12,(14)(15)(16). (ii) When the stimuli are rapidly swapped back and forth between the two eyes, the simulated percept either follows one image across the swapping or it follows the stimuli in one eye, depending on the temporal characteristics of the stimuli (21)(22)(23)(24).…”

“…12). First, EEG has been used to measure a neural correlate of the perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry when observers pay attention to the rival stimuli (13).…”