Orientation uncertainty reduces perceived obliquity
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Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Using Eye-tracking to Assess the Relative Importance of Visual and Vestibular Input to Subcortical Motion Processing in the Roll Plane
Published on: August 22, 2025
Alessandro Tomassini1, Michael J Morgan, Joshua A Solomon
1Optometry Department, City University, London, UK.
Abstract:
The influence of prejudice on perception should be greatest when certainty about stimulus identity is least. We exploited this relationship to reveal visual biases for the cardinal orientations: vertical and horizontal. Specifically, when we increased the variance of orientations in an array of grating patches, estimates of the mean became less oblique. This result is consistent with a stable prior, or prejudice, for those orientations most prevalent in natural scenes.
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