Seeing fruit on trees: enhanced perceptual dissimilarity from multiple ambiguous neural representations

Area of Science:

• Visual perception
• Cognitive neuroscience
• Computational vision

Background:

• Perceptual grouping typically resolves visual ambiguity by increasing perceived similarity between spatially separate regions.
• The neural mechanisms underlying this process are not fully understood, particularly how ambiguity itself influences perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether ambiguous neural representations, typically associated with grouping, can instead enhance perceived dissimilarity.
• To explore the role of enhanced dissimilarity in resolving visual ambiguity.

Main Methods:

• Ambiguous stimuli were created using two separated equiluminant gratings with feature rivalry (orientation or chromaticity).
• Observers' perception of the gratings' similarity/dissimilarity in color and orientation was recorded.

Main Results:

• Observers perceived the two gratings as different in both color and orientation more often than predicted by chance.
• A disambiguating process was identified that frequently selected for maximal perceived dissimilarity between the objects.

Conclusions:

• Ambiguous neural representations can lead to enhanced perceived dissimilarity, not just similarity.
• This enhanced dissimilarity plays a crucial role in resolving visual ambiguity by differentiating between objects.