Testing temporal integration of feature probability distributions using role-reversal effects in visual search

Abstract

The visual system is sensitive to statistical properties of complex scenes and can encode feature probability distributions in detail. This encoding could reflect a passive process due to the visual system's sensitivity to temporal perturbations in the input or a more active process of building probabilistic representations. To investigate this, we examined how observers temporally integrate two different orientation distributions from sequentially presented visual search trials. If the encoded probabilistic information is used in a Bayesian optimal way, observers should weigh more reliable information more strongly, such as feature distributions with low variance. We therefore manipulated the variance of the two feature distributions. Participants performed sequential odd-one-out visual search for an oddly oriented line among distractors. During successive learning trials, the distractor orientations were sampled from two different Gaussian distributions on alternating trials. Then, observers performed a 'test trial' where the orientations of the target and distractors were switched, allowing to assess observer's internal representation of distractor distributions based on changes in response times. In three experiments we observed that observer's search times on test trials depended mainly on the very last learning trial, indicating little temporal integration. Since temporal integration has been previously observed with this method, we conclude that when the input is unreliable, the visual system relies on the most recent stimulus instead of integrating it with previous ones. This indicates that the visual system prefers to utilize sensory history when the statistical properties of the environment are relatively stable.

Perceptual history biases in serial ensemble representation

“…Many studies in the past two decades investigated the efficient nature of perceptual averaging from a set of items (see Introduction). While the main focus in this literature is rapid feature integration from the current trial to form a summary representation, only a few tested the influence of history and found contraction biases in mean estimation tasks for facial expressions ( Crawford et al, 2019 ), orientation ( Manassi et al, 2017 ; Son et al, 2021 ; Tanrikulu et al, 2021 ), and brightness ( Crawford et al, 2019 ). In these experiments, ensembles are presented all at once for a short time, but in real-world environments, groups of items are often dynamically perceived over longer time scales.…”

“…While most studies describe the common attraction (positive) bias to recent stimuli (e.g., Cicchini et al, 2018 ; Fischer & Whitney, 2014 ; Liberman et al, 2018 ), others found it to be negative (i.e., a repulsion bias) under specific conditions ( Fritsche et al, 2017 ; Son et al, 2021 ). Serial dependence was also found to occur in ensemble statistics judgments with both attraction ( Manassi et al, 2017 ; Son et al, 2021 ; Suárez-Pinilla et al, 2018 ; Tanrıkulu et al, 2021 ) and repulsion ( Son et al, 2021 ; Suárez-Pinilla et al, 2018 ) biases by recently perceived ensembles, depending on different factors.…”

The Gravitational Pull of the Full Moon to Explain Phenomenon: Superstition or Science

“…Strong visual cues have been noted to have the ability to skew memories of events, ascribing stronger relationships and recall (Tanrıkulu, Chetverikov, & Kristjánsson, 2021). The full moon is an overt phenomenon with known scientific influence such as gravitational pressures on tides and melatonin levels in humans (Hartstein et al, 2022).…”