Reference Repulsion Is Not a Perceptual Illusion

Fritsche, Matthias; Lange, Floris P. de

doi:10.1101/366393

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In those experiments, choices for the current stimulus are typically distorted towards the preceding stimulus [ 68 , 69 ], an attractive effect that is thought to underlie stable perception. However, the sign of this effect flips depending on the nature of the task [ 70 , 71 ], with tasks that require a comparison between stimuli and a standard, as our task does, documenting repulsion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How do (perceptual) distracters distract?

Dumbalska

Rudzka²,

Smithson³

et al. 2022

PLoS Comput Biol

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When a target stimulus occurs in the presence of distracters, decisions are less accurate. But how exactly do distracters affect choices? Here, we explored this question using measurement of human behaviour, psychophysical reverse correlation and computational modelling. We contrasted two models: one in which targets and distracters had independent influence on choices (independent model) and one in which distracters modulated choices in a way that depended on their similarity to the target (interaction model). Across three experiments, participants were asked to make fine orientation judgments about the tilt of a target grating presented adjacent to an irrelevant distracter. We found strong evidence for the interaction model, in that decisions were more sensitive when target and distracter were consistent relative to when they were inconsistent. This consistency bias occurred in the frame of reference of the decision, that is, it operated on decision values rather than on sensory signals, and surprisingly, it was independent of spatial attention. A normalization framework, where target features are normalized by the expectation and variability of the local context, successfully captures the observed pattern of results.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How do (perceptual) distracters distract?

Dumbalska

Rudzka²,

Smithson³

et al. 2022

PLoS Comput Biol

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“…Since first proposed (Stocker and Simoncelli, 2007), data from a growing number of psychophysical studies suggest that humans perform conditioned inference in certain situations (Jazayeri and Movshon, 2007; Zamboni et al, 2016; Wu et al, 2009; Ding et al, 2017; Fritsche and de Lange, 2019; Luu and Stocker, 2018); i.e. , they commit to a single high-level interpretation rather than taking into account all possible high-level interpretations when performing low-level feature inference.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, by making an category assignment a subject’s subsequent perceptual estimate of a low-level stimulus feature ( e.g. , motion direction (Jazayeri and Movshon, 2007; Zamboni et al, 2016) or visual orientation (Luu and Stocker, 2018; Fritsche and de Lange, 2019)) is biased towards the assigned category on a per trial basis. These biases can be thought of as a form of consistency (Brehm, 1956) or confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998) where the perceptual estimate aligns with and confirms the chosen category (Bronfman et al, 2015; Talluri et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benefits of commitment in hierarchical inference

Qiu

Luu

Stocker

2019

Preprint

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Humans have the tendency to commit to a single interpretation of what has caused some observed 1 evidence rather than considering all possible alternatives. This tendency can explain various forms 2 of confirmation and reference biases. However, committing to a single high-level interpretation 3 seems short-sighted and irrational, and thus it is unclear why humans seem motivated to pursue 4 such strategy. 5 In a first step toward answering this question, we systematically quantified how this strategy affects 6 estimation accuracy at the feature level in the context of two universal hierarchical inference tasks, 7 categorical perception and causal cue combination. Using model simulations, we demonstrate 8 that although estimation is generally impaired when conditioned on only a single high-level inter-9 pretation, the impairment is not uniform across the entire feature range. On the contrary, compared 10 to a full inference strategy that considers all high-level interpretations, accuracy is actually better 11 for feature values for which the probability of an incorrect categorical/structural commitment is rel-12 atively low. That is to say, if an observer is reasonably certain about the high-level interpretation 13 of the feature, it is advantageous to condition subsequent feature inference only on that particular 14 interpretation. We also show that this benefit of commitment is substantially amplified if late noise 15 corrupts information processing (e.g., during retention in working memory). Our results suggest 16 that top-down inference strategies that solely rely on the most likely high-level interpretation can 17 be favorable and at least locally outperform a full inference strategy. 18 performance 20 25 rate description of human behavior in a broad range of tasks associated with perception (Knill and 26 Richards, 1996), cognitive reasoning (Griffiths et al., 2010), economic decision-making (Summer-27 field and Tsetsos, 2012) and motor control (Wolpert, 2007). Furthermore, mental disorders such 28 as autism and schizophrenia have been directly linked to specific computational deficiencies of this 29 inference process (Lieder et al., 2019; Jardri and Deneve, 2013). Except for simple estimation and 30 decision-making tasks (Ernst and Banks, 2002; Körding and Wolpert, 2004; Stocker and Simon-31 celli, 2006), the generative models of these tasks are hierarchical. Object recognition is a simple 32 example of a hierarchical inference task where, at the top of the hierarchy, object categories are 33 defined as specific distributions over some lower-level feature representation potentially across 34 multiple levels of feature integration. Noisy observations at the lowest feature level then allow 35 to infer the corresponding object category by inverting the hierarchical generative model (Ker-36 sten et al., 2004). Various studies have shown that human behavior in such tasks is accurately 37 described by Bayesian statistics that fully integrate all information in the hierarchical generative 38 model (i.e., full...

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“…However, perception is not only biased by objective, statistical prior expectations but also by an observer's subjective categorical assessment of a visual feature. For example, in a task sequence where subjects first had to make a categorical judgment about a stimulus feature before providing an estimate of the feature value (motion direction 7,8,9 ; orientation 10,11 ; or numerosity 9,12 ), the resulting estimates showed systematic biases in favor of their preceding category choices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Categorical judgments do not modify sensory information in working memory

Luu

Stocker

2020

Preprint

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Categorical judgments can systematically bias the perceptual interpretation of stimulus features.However, it remained unclear whether categorical judgments directly modify working memory representations or, alternatively, generate these biases via an inference process down-stream from working memory. To address this question we ran two novel psychophysical experiments in which human subjects had to revert their categorical judgments about a stimulus feature, if incorrect based on feedback, before providing an estimate of the feature. If categorical judgments indeed directly altered sensory representations in working memory, subjects' estimates should reflect some aspects of their initial (incorrect) categorical judgment in those trials.We found no traces of the initial categorical judgment. Rather, subjects seem to be able to flexibly switch their categorical judgment if needed and use the correct corresponding categorical prior to properly perform feature inference. A cross-validated model comparison also revealed that feedback may lead to selective memory recall such that only memory samples that are consistent with the categorical judgment are accepted for the inference process. Our results suggest that categorical judgments do not modify sensory information in working memory but rather act as top-down expectation in the subsequent sensory recall and inference process down-stream from working memory.

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Reference Repulsion Is Not a Perceptual Illusion

Cited by 3 publications

References 37 publications

How do (perceptual) distracters distract?

How do (perceptual) distracters distract?

Benefits of commitment in hierarchical inference

Categorical judgments do not modify sensory information in working memory

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