The role of secondary features in serial dependence

Abstract

Recent work indicates that visual features are processed in a serially dependent manner: The decision about a stimulus feature in the present is influenced by the features of stimuli seen in the past, leading to serial dependence. It remains unclear, however, under which conditions serial dependence is influenced by secondary features of the stimulus. Here, we investigate whether the color of a stimulus influences serial dependence in an orientation adjustment task. Observers viewed a sequence of oriented stimuli that randomly changed color (red or green) and reproduced the orientation of the last stimulus in the sequence. In addition, they had to either detect a certain color in the stimulus (Experiment 1) or discriminate the color of the stimulus (Experiment 2). We found that color does not influence serial dependence for orientation, and that observers were biased by previous orientations independently of changes or repetitions in the stimulus color. This occurred even when observers were explicitly asked to discriminate the stimuli based on their color. Together, our two experiments indicate that when the task involves a single elementary feature such as orientation, serial dependence is not modulated by changes in other features of the stimulus.

Tuning perception and decisions to temporal context

“… 1 , 8 A classic example is the bias observed when two similarly oriented stimuli are shown one after the other, with the second orientation being judged as more similar to the first than it truly is. Similar effects can be found in almost all visual tasks, ranging from those involving elementary features 1 , 6 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 to more complex and abstract ones, 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 suggesting that the dependence on prior events is a pervasive and general aspect of perceptual decision-making 23 that cannot be overcome even in situations where it is non-adaptive. 24 …”

The effects of visual distractors on serial dependence

“…Recent research has shown that when we repeatedly attend to the same feature, such as the orientation or motion of a stimulus, our perceptual decisions become serially dependent: the stimulus features are judged as being more similar to recent past than they actually are ( Fischer & Whitney, 2014 ; see Pascucci et al, 2023 for a review). This phenomenon has been reported in nearly all sorts of visual tasks and comes in many colors ( Bliss, Sun, & D'Esposito, 2017 ; Ceylan et al, 2021 ; Collins, 2020 ; Collins, 2022 ; Fornaciai & Park, 2018b ; Fritsche, Mostert, & de Lange, 2017 ; Fritsche & de Lange, 2019 ; Houborg, Kristjánsson, Tanrikulu & Pascucci, 2023 ; Manassi, Kristjánsson & Whitney, 2019 ; Murai & Whitney, 2021 ; Pascucci et al, 2019 ; Pascucci & Plomp, 2021a ; Rafiei, Hansmann-Roth, Whitney, Kristjánsson, & Chetverikov, 2021a ; Rafiei, Chetverikov, Hansmann-Roth, & Kristjánsson, 2021 ; Tanrikulu, Pascucci, & Kristjánsson, 2023 ). Such attractive serial dependence, in which decisions are biased toward prior stimuli, is considered to result from how the brain links together events across consecutive perceptual episodes ( Corbett, Fischer, & Whitney, 2011 ; Fischer et al, 2020 ; Fischer & Whitney, 2014 ), a process that appears strongly influenced by attention ( Fischer & Whitney, 2014 ; Pascucci et al, 2019 ).…”

It’s not the spoon that bends: Internal states of the observer determine serial dependence

“…This novel finding clearly demonstrates that internal states of the observer are a key factor in serial dependence, beyond the uncertainty in the stimulus itself. Evidence of modulatory effects of confidence 43 , attention 20 , memory load 44 , time-on-task 45 , task demand 36,[46][47][48][49] , and stimulus predictability 50 , may all reflect the significant contribution of internal states in determining the tendency to integrate or disregard prior stimuli in current decisions.…”