Willpower and Conscious Percept: Volitional Switching in Binocular Rivalry

Hugrass, Laila; Crewther, David P.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035963

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(105 reference statements)

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“…Stimuli consisted of moving patterns or analogous configurations that represented apparent motions. Subjects were able to voluntary select the desired stimuli with respect to the competing one, but they were unable to do the same when the stimuli represented static patterns [57]. This finding is consistent with a previous neuroimaging report which showed that in a binocular rivalry stimulation condition, the dorsal stream was activated even when the stimulus representing a manipulable object tool was suppressed by the rival stimulus.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Action Imitation Changes Perceptual Alternations in Binocular Rivalry

Pace

Saracini

2014

PLoS ONE

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Binocular rivalry is a visual phenomenon in which perception alternates between two different monocular images presented to each of the two eyes. Here, we propose using this phenomenon as a method to study the relation between action execution and action perception. In our experiment, a simple background (a checkerboard) was contrasted with a video representing a hand continuously grasping and releasing a ball. In Experiment 1, our subjects were asked to reproduce the perceived movement with their right hand whenever they became aware of it and to stop doing this when the checkerboard dominated. Our results revealed that motor imitation of the perceived action significantly increased the time spent perceiving the hand. Three control experiments showed that these effects were not due to a generic involvement of focused attention (Experiment 2 and 3), to a verbal description of the performed action (Experiment 3) or to the execution of an unrelated movement of the hand (Experiment 4). Although an intrinsic connection between action execution and attention cannot be excluded with certainty, and the boundary between action imitation and unrelated action execution may vary along various degrees of similarity, on the whole, the present results seem to suggest, at least on a preliminary basis, that action imitation do play a relevant role in the perception of action. We discuss these findings in the frame of current theories concerning the relation between perception and action.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Action Imitation Changes Perceptual Alternations in Binocular Rivalry

Pace

Saracini

2014

PLoS ONE

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“…Ever since these early debates, the issue of voluntary control of ambiguous stimuli has recurrently attracted the interest of scientists until today (e.g., Washburn and Gillette, 1933 ; Washburn et al, 1934 ; Pelton and Solley, 1968 ; Lack, 1978 ; Peterson and Hochberg, 1983 ; Struber and Stadler, 1999 ; Suzuki and Peterson, 2000 ; Toppino, 2003 ; Meng and Tong, 2004 ; van Ee et al, 2005 ; Chong et al, 2005 ; Klink et al, 2008 ; Hugrass and Crewther, 2012 ; Stonkute et al, 2012 ). Among such studies a distinction can be traced between the observers' ability to switch between two alternative percepts and the ability to hold either of the two in visual awareness, as changes in reversal rate can occur without variations in relative dominance of either percept (van Ee et al, 2005 ).…”

Section: Transient States Of the Observer And Ambiguous Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, within the category of reversible figures, Struber and Stadler ( 1999 ) noted that observers exerted greater control of alternation rates for those stimuli whose ambiguity could be solved by reconstruction of meaning rather than by reference frame re-alignment (e.g., the duck/rabbit figure as opposed to the Necker cube, see Box 1 ). In binocular rivalry, van Ee et al ( 2005 ) reported greater ability to control higher level stimuli such as houses and faces than sinewave gratings, and a recent study of Hugrass and Crewther ( 2012 ) showed that whereas the reversal of stationary gratings is resistant to voluntary control, the introduction of motion information (both in the form of apparent and of real drifting of the gratings) seems to enable the observers to generate voluntary alternations. The authors maintained that this effect cannot be attributed to the mere control of eye movements (at least of saccadic ones) during the presentation of motion stimuli, because their frequency decreased when the experimental task involved voluntary control of switches and because their rate did not change at the time of perceptual reversals.…”

Section: Transient States Of the Observer And Ambiguous Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down influences on ambiguous perception: the role of stable and transient states of the observer

Scocchia

Valsecchi

Triesch

2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The world as it appears to the viewer is the result of a complex process of inference performed by the brain. The validity of this apparently counter-intuitive assertion becomes evident whenever we face noisy, feeble or ambiguous visual stimulation: in these conditions, the state of the observer may play a decisive role in determining what is currently perceived. On this background, ambiguous perception and its amenability to top-down influences can be employed as an empirical paradigm to explore the principles of perception. Here we offer an overview of both classical and recent contributions on how stable and transient states of the observer can impact ambiguous perception. As to the influence of the stable states of the observer, we show that what is currently perceived can be influenced (1) by cognitive and affective aspects, such as meaning, prior knowledge, motivation, and emotional content and (2) by individual differences, such as gender, handedness, genetic inheritance, clinical conditions, and personality traits and by (3) learning and conditioning. As to the impact of transient states of the observer, we outline the effects of (4) attention and (5) voluntary control, which have attracted much empirical work along the history of ambiguous perception. In the huge literature on the topic we trace a difference between the observer's ability to control dominance (i.e., the maintenance of a specific percept in visual awareness) and reversal rate (i.e., the switching between two alternative percepts). Other transient states of the observer that have more recently drawn researchers' attention regard (6) the effects of imagery and visual working memory. (7) Furthermore, we describe the transient effects of prior history of perceptual dominance. (8) Finally, we address the currently available computational models of ambiguous perception and how they can take into account the crucial share played by the state of the observer in perceiving ambiguous displays.

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“…OKN during binocular rivalry with moving stimuli is shown to correlate well with direction of consciously perceived perception in healthy populations (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)32). Here, we extended the generalizability of OKN readout in rivalry to patients with PD.…”

Section: Okn As a Readout Of Conscious Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Optokinetic nystagmus reflects perceptual directions in the onset binocular rivalry in Parkinson’s disease

Fujiwara

Ding

Kaunitz

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), the reflexive eye movements evoked by a moving field, has recently gained interest among researchers as a useful tool to assess conscious perception.When conscious perception and stimulus are dissociated, such as in binocular rivalry -when dissimilar images are simultaneously presented to each eye and perception alternates between the two images over time -OKN correlates with perception rather than with the physical direction of the moving field. While this relationship is well established in healthy subjects it is yet unclear whether it also generalizes to clinical populations, for example, patients with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease is a motor disorder, causing tremor, slow movements and rigidity. It may also be associated with oculomotor deficits, such as impaired saccades and smooth pursuit eye movements. Here, we employed short-duration, onset binocular rivalry (2 s trial of stimulus presentation followed by 1 s inter-trial interval) with moving grating stimuli to assess OKN in Parkinson's disease patients (N=39) and controls (N=29) of a similar age.Each trial was either non-rivalrous (same stimuli presented to both eyes) or rivalrous, as in binocular rivalry. We analyzed OKN to discriminate direction of stimulus and perception on a trial-by-trial basis. OKN reflected conscious perceptions in both groups. Treatment with anti-Parkinson drugs and deep brain stimulation improved motor ability of patients assessed by a standard scale of Parkinson's disease, but did not impact on OKN. Furthermore, OKN-based measures were robust and their latencies were shorter than manual button-based measures in all subjects, regardless of stimulus condition. Our findings suggest that OKN can be used as an indicator of conscious perception in binocular rivalry even in Parkinson's disease patients in whom impaired manual dexterity may render button-press reports less reliable.

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Willpower and Conscious Percept: Volitional Switching in Binocular Rivalry

Cited by 14 publications

References 52 publications

Action Imitation Changes Perceptual Alternations in Binocular Rivalry

Action Imitation Changes Perceptual Alternations in Binocular Rivalry

Top-down influences on ambiguous perception: the role of stable and transient states of the observer

Optokinetic nystagmus reflects perceptual directions in the onset binocular rivalry in Parkinson’s disease

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