Relational Dynamics in Perception: Impacts on Trial-to-trial Variation
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 1, 2026

RBDT: A Computerized Task System based in Transposition for the Continuous Analysis of Relational Behavior Dynamics in Humans
Published on: July 17, 2021
1Network Biology Research Laboratories, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel.
Abstract:
We show that trial-to-trial variability in sensory detection of a weak visual stimulus is dramatically diminished when rather than presenting a fixed stimulus contrast, fluctuations in a subject's judgment are matched by fluctuations in stimulus contrast. This attenuation of fluctuations does not involve a change in the subject's psychometric function. The result is consistent with the interpretation of trial-to-trial variability in this sensory detection task being a high-level meta-cognitive control process that explores for something that our brains are so used to: subject-object relational dynamics.
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