When perceptual time stands still: Long stable memory in binocular rivalry

TL;DR

This study investigates how perceptual dominance durations in binocular rivalry are affected by stimulus presentation patterns, revealing long-lasting perceptual states even during stimulus-off intervals, challenging existing models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the probability distribution of dominance durations remains stable over long blank intervals, suggesting perceptual states are resistant to change during stimulus absence.

Findings

PDDD for periodic stimuli can be approximated by slicing continuous PDDD.

Perceptual states do not significantly change during long blank intervals.

Results challenge current models of visual perception.

Abstract

We have carried out binocular rivalry experiments with a large number of subjects to obtain high quality statistics on probability distribution of dominance duration (PDDD) for two cases where (a) the rival stimulus is continuously presented and (b) the rival stimulus is periodically removed, with stimulus-on and stimulus-off intervals Ton and Toff respectively. It is shown that the PDDD obtained for the latter case can be reproduced to a reasonable degree of approximation by simply using the PDDD of part (a) and slicing it at pieces of time extent Ton and by introducing intervals of length Toff between the on-intervals where the PDDD is set to zero. This suggests that the variables representing the perceptual state do not change significantly during long blank intervals. We argue that these findings impose challenges to theoretical models which aim at describing visual perception.