The Role of Attention in Ambiguous Reversals of Structure-From-Motion

Stonkute, Solveiga; Braun, Jochen; Pastukhov, Alexander

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037734

Cited by 16 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…By comparison, object rotation is far more "flexible" in that reversals of apparent rotation are readily prompted by stimulus transients Stonkute, Braun, & Pastukhov, 2012). Accordingly, object shape may be treated as an invariant and may carry particular weight in determining the continuity and persistence of objects.…”

Section: Related Forms Of Sensory Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory memory of structure-from-motion is shape-specific

Pastukhov¹,

Füllekrug²,

Braun³

2013

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Perceptual priming can stabilize the phenomenal appearance of multistable visual displays (Leopold, Wilke, Maier, & Logothetis, Nature Neuroscience, 5, 605-609, 2002). Prior exposure to such displays induces a sensory memory of their appearance, which persists over long intervals and intervening stimulation, and which facilitates renewed perception of the same appearance. Here, we investigated perceptual priming for the apparent rotation in depth of ambiguous structure-from-motion (SFM) displays. Specifically, we generated SFM objects with different threedimensional shapes and presented them in random order and with intervening blank periods. To assess perceptual priming, we established the probability that a perceived direction of rotation would persist between successive objects. In general, persistence was greatest between identical objects, intermediate between similar objects, and negligible between dissimilar objects. These results demonstrate unequivocally that sensory memory for apparent rotation is specific to three-dimensional shape, contrary to previous reports (e.g., Maier, Wilke, Logothetis, & Leopold, Current Biology, 13, 1076-1085. Because persistence did not depend on presentation order for any pair of objects, it provides a commutative measure for the similarity of object shapes. However, it is not clear exactly which features or aspects of object shape determine similarity. At least, we did not find simple, low-level features (such as volume overlap, heterogeneity, or rotational symmetry) that could have accounted for all observations. Accordingly, it seems that sensory memory of SFM (which underlies priming of ambiguous rotation) engages higher-level representations of object surface and shape.

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Section: Related Forms Of Sensory Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory memory of structure-from-motion is shape-specific

Pastukhov¹,

Füllekrug²,

Braun³

2013

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…have recently shown that even when dealing with the ambiguous illusory states, the visual system takes into account the ecological plausibility of transitions between them. During the forced ambiguous switch, a reversal of the illusory rotation is preferred over the inversion of the illusory depth (this is true only when the object is not depth symmetric, as in the present experiment; for further details, please refer to Stonkute et al, 2012). However, these transformation constraints are unlikely to be relevant if there are interruptions in the perception of the illusory object.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…Earlier work on SFM displays showed that the stability of perception depends primarily on the constancy of the interpolated illusory object (the surface interpolation hypothesis; Treue et al, 1995). Even large changes to the motion and location of individual dots, such as limiting their lifetimes (Brouwer & van Ee, 2006) or reversing their physical motions (Li & Kingdom, 1999;Petersik & Dannemiller, 2004;Stonkute et al, 2012;Zivotofsky & Goldstein, 2007), may not destabilize perception as long as the illusory shape remains the same.…”

Section: ) Nonmotion Dot Attributesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Fig. 1a, it is impossible to know whether the illusory sphere (depicted as a gray circle) follows the example dots and reverses its depth, although current evidence strongly suggests that it remains constant (Brouwer & van Ee, 2006;Li & Kingdom, 1999;Pastukhov, Vonau, & Braun, 2012;Petersik, 1979;Stonkute, Braun, & Pastukhov, 2012;Treder & Meulenbroek, 2010;Zivotofsky & Goldstein, 2007). Taking into account that commonly used object shapes such as spheres or cylinders are rotationally symmetric and, thus, depth symmetric, it is easy to see why illusory depth was overlooked.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Structure-from-motion: dissociating perception, neural persistence, and sensory memory of illusory depth and illusory rotation

Pastukhov

Braun

2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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In the structure-from-motion paradigm, physical motion on a screen produces the vivid illusion of an object rotating in depth. Here, we show how to dissociate illusory depth and illusory rotation in a structure-from-motion stimulus using a rotationally asymmetric shape and reversals of physical motion. Reversals of physical motion create a conflict between the original illusory states and the new physical motion: Either illusory depth remains constant and illusory rotation reverses, or illusory rotation stays the same and illusory depth reverses. When physical motion reverses after the interruption in presentation, we find that illusory rotation tends to remain constant for long blank durations (T blank ≥ 0.5 s), but illusory depth is stabilized if interruptions are short (T blank ≤ 0.1 s). The stability of illusory depth over brief interruptions is consistent with the effect of neural persistence. When this is curtailed using a mask, stability of ambiguous vision (for either illusory depth or illusory rotation) is disrupted. We also examined the selectivity of the neural persistence of illusory depth. We found that it relies on a static representation of an interpolated illusory object, since changes to low-level display properties had little detrimental effect. We discuss our findings with respect to other types of history dependence in multistable displays (sensory stabilization memory, neural fatigue, etc.). Our results suggest that when brief interruptions are used during the presentation of multistable displays, switches in perception are likely to rely on the same neural mechanisms as spontaneous switches, rather than switches due to the initial percept choice at the stimulus onset.

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“…To this end, we reanalyzed the data of (Stonkute, Braun, & Pastukhov, 2012), where attention was distracted in every trial by a concurrent task at the time of the sudden change in the planar motion of an SFM display (see Fig. 6A and Stonkute et al (2012) for details).…”

Section: Transformation Priming Cannot Be Explained By Selective Attementioning

confidence: 99%

Transformation priming helps to disambiguate sudden changes of sensory inputs

2015

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Retinal input is riddled with abrupt transients due to self-motion, changes in illumination, object-motion, etc. Our visual system must correctly interpret each of these changes to keep visual perception consistent and sensitive. This poses an enormous challenge, as many transients are highly ambiguous in that they are consistent with many alternative physical transformations. Here we investigated inter-trial effects in three situations with sudden and ambiguous transients, each presenting two alternative appearances (rotation-reversing structure-from-motion, polarity-reversing shape-from-shading, and streaming-bouncing object collisions). In every situation, we observed priming of transformations as the outcome perceived in earlier trials tended to repeat in subsequent trials and this repetition was contingent on perceptual experience. The observed priming was specific to transformations and did not originate in priming of perceptual states preceding a transient. Moreover, transformation priming was independent of attention and specific to low level stimulus attributes. In summary, we show how "transformation priors" and experience-driven updating of such priors helps to disambiguate sudden changes of sensory inputs. We discuss how dynamic transformation priors can be instantiated as "transition energies" in an "energy landscape" model of the visual perception.

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The Role of Attention in Ambiguous Reversals of Structure-From-Motion

Cited by 16 publications

References 49 publications

Sensory memory of structure-from-motion is shape-specific

Sensory memory of structure-from-motion is shape-specific

Structure-from-motion: dissociating perception, neural persistence, and sensory memory of illusory depth and illusory rotation

Transformation priming helps to disambiguate sudden changes of sensory inputs

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