Binocular rivalry
Binocular rivalry is a phenomenon of visual perception in which perception alternates between different images presented to each eye.[1]
When one image is presented to one eye and a very different image is presented to the other (also known as dichoptic presentation), instead of the two images being seen superimposed, one image is seen for a few moments,[2] then the other, then the first, and so on, randomly for as long as one cares to look. For example, if a set of vertical lines is presented to one eye, and a set of horizontal lines to the same region of the retina of the other, sometimes the vertical lines are seen with no trace of the horizontal lines, and sometimes the horizontal lines are seen with no trace of the vertical lines.
At transitions, brief, unstable composites of the two images may be seen. For example, the vertical lines may appear one at a time to obscure the horizontal lines from the left or from the right, like a traveling wave, switching slowly one image for the other.[3] Binocular rivalry occurs between any stimuli that differ sufficiently,[4] including simple stimuli like lines of different orientation and complex stimuli like different alphabetic letters or different pictures such as of a face and of a house.
Very small differences between images, however, might yield singleness of vision and stereopsis. Binocular rivalry has been extensively studied in the last century.[5][page needed] In recent years[when?] neuroscientists have used neuroimaging techniques and single-cell recording techniques to identify neural events responsible for the perceptual dominance of a given image and for the perceptual alternations.
Types
When the images presented to the eyes differ only in their contours, rivalry is referred to as binocular contour rivalry. When the images presented to the eyes differ only in their
History
Binocular rivalry was discovered by
Early theories
Various theories were proposed to account for binocular rivalry. Porta and Dutour took it as evidence for an ancient theory of visual perception that has come to be known as
Other theories of binocular rivalry dealt more with how it occurs than why it occurs. Dutour speculated that the alternations could be controlled by attention, a theory promoted in the nineteenth century by Hermann von Helmholtz.[full citation needed] But Dutour also speculated that the alternations could be controlled by structural properties of the images (such as by temporary fluctuations in the blur of one image, or temporary fluctuations in the luminance of one image). This theory was promoted in the nineteenth century by Helmholtz's traditional rival, Ewald Hering.[full citation needed]
Empirical studies: B. B. Breese (1899, 1909)
The most comprehensive early study of binocular rivalry was conducted by B. B. Breese (1899, 1909). Breese quantified the amount of rivalry by requiring his observers to press keys while observing rivalry for 100-second trials. An observer pressed one key whenever and for as long as he or she saw one rival stimulus with no trace of the other, and another key whenever and for as long as he or she saw the other rival stimulus with no trace of the first. This has come to be known as recording periods of exclusive visibility. From the key-press records (Breese's were made on a kymograph drum), Breese was able to quantify rivalry in three ways: the number of periods of exclusive visibility of each stimulus (the rate of rivalry), the total duration of exclusive visibility of each stimulus, and the average duration of each period of rivalry.
Breese first found that although observers could increase the time one rival stimulus was seen by attending to it, they could not increase the rate of that stimulus. Moreover, when he asked his observers to refrain from moving their eyes over the attended stimulus, control was abolished. When he asked observers specifically to move their eyes over one stimulus, that stimulus predominated in rivalry. He could also increase predominance of a stimulus by increasing the number of its contours, by moving it, by reducing its size, by making it brighter, and by contracting the muscles on the same side of the body as the eye viewing that stimulus. Breese also showed that rivalry occurs between afterimages. Breese also discovered the phenomenon of monocular rivalry: if the two rival stimuli are optically superimposed to the same eye and one fixates on the stimuli, then alternations in the clarity of the two stimuli are seen. Occasionally, one image disappears altogether, as in binocular rivalry, although this is much rarer than in binocular rivalry.
Other senses
See also
References
- Breese, B.B. (1909). "Binocular rivalry". Psychological Review. 16 (6): 410–5. doi:10.1037/h0075805.
- Breese, B.B. (1899). "On inhibition". Psychological Monographs. 3: 1–65. S2CID 249336219.
- Desaguiliers, J.T. (1716). "III. A plain and easy Experiment to confirm Sir Isaac Newton's Doctrine of the different Refrangibility of the Rays of Light". Philosophical Transactions. 348: 448–452.
- Dutour, É.F. (1760). "Discussion d'une question d'optique". Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique Présentés par Divers Savants. 3. l’Académie des Sciences: 514–530. O’Shea, R.P. (1999) Translation Archived 2015-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
- Dutour, É.F. (1763). "Addition au Mémoire intitulé, Discussion d'une question d'Optique, imprimé dans le troisième Volume des Mémoires des Savan[t]s Étrangers, pages 514 & suivantes" [Addition to the Memoir entitled, Discussion on a question of Optics printed in the third Volume of Memoirs of Foreign Scientists, pages 514 and following]. Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique Préséntes par Divers Savants. 4. Académie des Sciences: 499–511. O’Shea, R.P. (1999) Translation Archived 2015-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
- Le Clerc, S. (1712). Système de la vision. Paris: Delaulne.
- Porta, J. B. (1593). De refractione. Optices parte. Libri novem. Naples: Salviani.
- Wade, N.J. (1996). "Descriptions of visual phenomena from Aristotle to Wheatstone". Perception. 25 (10): 1137–75. S2CID 21480863.
- Wade, N.J. (1998). "Early studies of eye dominances". Laterality. 3 (2): 97–108. PMID 15513077.
- S2CID 36512205.
Further reading
- Wikibooks: Consciousness Studies
- Alais, D.; Blake, R. (2005). Binocular Rivalry. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-01212-X.
- Carter O.L.; Pettigrew J.D.; Hasler F.; et al. (June 2005). "Modulating the rate and rhythmicity of perceptual rivalry alternations with the mixed 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A agonist psilocybin". Neuropsychopharmacology. 30 (6): 1154–62. PMID 15688092. — Effects of psilocybinon binocular rivalry.
- Blake, R. (2001). "A primer on binocular rivalry, including current controversies". Brain and Mind. 2: 5–38. S2CID 2336275.
- Blake R., S2CID 8410171.
External links
- Blake, Randolph; Tong, Frank (2008). "Binocular rivalry". .
- Blake, Randolph. "Binocular Rivalry Demonstrations". Binocular Rivalry.
- O'Shea, Robert P. "Binocular rivalry bibliography". Robert P O'Shea. Archived from the original on 2020-10-11. Retrieved 2013-04-08.