EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCYAND CONTRAST CONTEXTS ON THE COGNITION OF WORDS: <i>A study of stereoscopic rivalry</i>

Rommetveit, Ragnar; Toch, Hans; Svendsen, Dagmund

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.1968.tb00527.x

Cited by 19 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…On the other hand, the results of Experiment 2B reveal that only the stimulus contrast determined the first percept whereas the auditory semantic context did not (see also Experiment 2A; though see Rommetveit et al, 1968; Costello et al, 2009). That is, the figure that had the higher contrast was perceived first.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Crossmodal Constraints on Human Perceptual Awareness: Auditory Semantic Modulation of Binocular Rivalry

2011

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We report a series of experiments utilizing the binocular rivalry paradigm designed to investigate whether auditory semantic context modulates visual awareness. Binocular rivalry refers to the phenomenon whereby when two different figures are presented to each eye, observers perceive each figure as being dominant in alternation over time. The results demonstrate that participants report a particular percept as being dominant for less of the time when listening to an auditory soundtrack that happens to be semantically congruent with the other alternative (i.e., the competing) percept, as compared to when listening to an auditory soundtrack that was irrelevant to both visual figures (Experiment 1A). When a visually presented word was provided as a semantic cue, no such semantic modulatory effect was observed (Experiment 1B). We also demonstrate that the crossmodal semantic modulation of binocular rivalry was robustly observed irrespective of participants’ attentional control over the dichoptic figures and the relative luminance contrast between the figures (Experiments 2A and 2B). The pattern of crossmodal semantic effects reported here cannot simply be attributed to the meaning of the soundtrack guiding participants’ attention or biasing their behavioral responses. Hence, these results support the claim that crossmodal perceptual information can serve as a constraint on human visual awareness in terms of their semantic congruency.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Crossmodal Constraints on Human Perceptual Awareness: Auditory Semantic Modulation of Binocular Rivalry

2011

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“…After monocular priming with one word, observers tended to report seeing the second word that was related to the prime under conditions of rivalry. These results suggest that semantic information can influence predominance during binocular rivalry (Rommetveit, Toch, & Svendsen,1968a, 1968b). However, Blake argued that binocular rivalry may not have truly taken place in these experiments because the target words were flashed for only 400 ms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Semantic and subword priming during binocular suppression

Costello

Jiang

Baartman

et al. 2009

Consciousness and Cognition

118

143

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In general, stimuli that are familiar and recognizable have an advantage of predominance during binocular rivalry. Recent research has demonstrated that familiar and recognizable stimuli such as upright faces and words in a native language could break interocular suppression faster than their matched controls. In this study, a visible word prime was presented binocularly then replaced by a high-contrast dynamic noise pattern presented to one eye and either a semantically related or unrelated word was introduced to the other eye. We measured how long it took for target words to break from suppression. To investigate word-parts priming, a second experiment also included word pairs that had overlapping subword fragments. Results from both experiments consistently show that semantically related words and words that shared subword fragments were faster to gain dominance compared to unrelated words, suggesting that words, even when interocularly suppressed and invisible, can benefit from semantic and subword priming.

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“…To give a few examples of the effect of meaning on rivalry, Engel (1956) reported that a familiar figure (an upright face) predominated over a less familiar figure (an upside down face) during rivalry. In a similar vein, Rommetveit, Toch, andSvendson (1968a, 1968b) found that semantic context influenced which word was seen when observers dichoptically viewed a pair of words differing in meaning.…”

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confidence: 99%

Dichoptic reading: The role of meaning in binocular rivalry

Blake

1988

Perception & Psychophysics

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These experiments sought to determine whether meaning influences the predominance of one eye during binocular rivalry. In Experiment I, observers tried to read meaningful text under conditions in which different text streams were viewed by the two eyes, a situation mimicking the classic dichotic listening paradigm. Dichoptic reading proved impossible even when the text streams were printed in different fonts or when one eye received a 5-sec advantage. Under nonrivalry conditions, the observers were able to read text presented at twice the rate usedfor dichoptic testing, indicating that cognitive overload does not limit performance under conditions of rivalry. In Experiment 2, observers were required to detect repeated presentations of a probe target within a string of characters presented to one eye. Although this task was easily performed under monocular viewing conditions, it proved difficult when the two eyes received dissimilar character strings. This was true regardless of whether the probed eye viewed nonsense strings, real words, or meaningful text. In a condition designed to encourage semantic processing of one eye's view, the observers were required to detect animal names as well as to detect the probe target. Performance remained inferior to that measured under monocular conditions. Even the observer's own name proved insufficient to influence the predominance of one eye under conditions of dichoptic stimulation. When two text strings were physically superimposed and viewed monocularly, essentially no probes were detected, indicating that the failure to see some probes during rivalry reflects a limitation unique to dichoptic viewing. These results contradict theories attributing binocular rivalry to an attentional process that operates on monocular inputs that have received refined analysis. This conclusion may be limited to rival stimuli whose meaning is defined linguistically, not structurally.The idea that binocular rivalry involves some sort of attentional mechanism is deeply rooted within the literature on visual perception. In his classic treatise on physiological optics, Helmholtz (1866/1962) dealt at some length with the parallels between rivalry and attention, and James (1890), in his chapter on attention, used rivalry to illustrate the hallmarks of what he called "sensorial attention." This putative link between rivalry and attention also appears in contemporary writings. In one of the most recent reviews of the literature on binocular rivalry, Walker (1978) maintained this tradition by arguing that "rivalry reflects central selective processes ... over and above the analysis of sensory information" (p. 387).Several lines of evidence can be marshaled in support of the view that rivalry involves central attentional mechanisms. For one thing, rivalry occurs even when the provoking stimuli are afterimages (e.g., Breese, 1899), a condition that effectively eliminates such peripheral factors as eye movements, retinal adaptation, or changes in accommodation as causes of rivalry. It is also known that

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EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCYAND CONTRAST CONTEXTS ON THE COGNITION OF WORDS: A study of stereoscopic rivalry

Cited by 19 publications

References 8 publications

Crossmodal Constraints on Human Perceptual Awareness: Auditory Semantic Modulation of Binocular Rivalry

Crossmodal Constraints on Human Perceptual Awareness: Auditory Semantic Modulation of Binocular Rivalry

Semantic and subword priming during binocular suppression

Dichoptic reading: The role of meaning in binocular rivalry

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