Monocular rivalry exhibits three hallmarks of binocular rivalry: Evidence for common processes

Abstract

Binocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented one to each eye: the images are visible only alternately. Monocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented both to the same eye: the clarity of the images fluctuates alternately. Could both sorts of rivalry reflect the operation of a general visual mechanism for dealing with perceptual ambiguity? We report four experiments showing similarities between the two phenomena. First, we show that monocular rivalry can occur with complex images, as with binocular rivalry, and that the two phenomena are affected similarly by the size (Experiment 1) and colour (Experiment 2) of the images. Second, we show that the distribution of dominance periods during monocular rivalry has a gamma shape and is stochastic (Experiment 3). Third, we show that during periods of monocular-rivalry suppression, the threshold to detect a probe (a contrast pulse to the suppressed stimulus) is raised compared with during periods of dominance (Experiment 4). The threshold elevation is much weaker than during binocular rivalry, consistent with monocular rivalry's weak appearance. We discuss other similarities between monocular and binocular rivalry, and also some differences, concluding that part of the processing underlying both phenomena is a general visual mechanism for dealing with perceptual ambiguity.

The ‘laws’ of binocular rivalry: 50 years of Levelt’s propositions

“…Nowadays, the finding that perceptual dominance durations follow a right-skewed distribution has been replicated for a broad range visual bistability paradigms, as has the finding that these durations show little sequential correlation (Borsellino et al, 1972;Brascamp et al, 2005;Carter & Pettigrew, 2003;De Marco, Penengo, & Trabucco, 1977;Fox & Herrmann, 1967;Holcombe & Seizova-Cajic, 2008;Murata et al, 2003;O'Shea et al, 2009;Pastukhov & Braun, 2011;van Ee, 2005van Ee, , 2009Walker, 1975).…”

“…Similarly, while the fitted distribution is in many cases indeed a gamma distribution (Kovács et al, 1996;Logothetis et al, 1996;Murata et al, 2003;O'Shea et al, 2009;, other theoretical distributions have been used and appear comparably suitable (Brascamp et al, 2005;Lehky, 1995;Moreno-Bote et al, 2007;Shpiro et al, 2009;Zhou et al, 2004). These might be reasons why attempts to further examine percept durations in terms of an underlying Poisson-like process have been fairly limited (Blake, Fox, & McIntyre, 1971;Murata et al, 2004Murata et al, , 2003.…”

Onset rivalry: factors that succeed and fail to bias selection

“…The initiation of monocular rivalry usually takes several seconds longer than the 300 ms duration our stimuli were presented (Breese, 1909). The gratings were also achromatic and presented at a low contrast, which further minimizes the possibility of monocular rivalry (O'Shea, Parker, La Rooy, & Alais, 2009).…”

Neural Mechanisms for Binocular Depth, Rivalry and Multistability

“…left and right oriented gratings) alternate in clarity or salience. The experience is similar to perceptual alternations in binocular rivalry, although the alternations are more difficult to perceive, because neither component is completely suppressed [69,77]. Thus in all these examples of multistability, the alternations between the different possible percepts are more subtle, compared with the near total suppression of one eye's image which occurs with binocular rivalry.…”

“…Coloured stimuli were used in order to enhance the percept of monocular rivalry. As described earlier, the perceptual alternations in monocular rivalry are more subtle than those in binocular rivalry, reflecting less perceptual suppression [69,77].…”