Conflicts between short- and long-term experiences affect visual perception through modulating sensory or motor...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Computational Vision

Background:

• Decades of research explored short- and long-term experiences independently impacting visual perception.
• Previous studies have not investigated the simultaneous effects of these experiences on visual perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how long-term and short-term experiences concurrently influence visual perception.
• To explore the underlying Bayesian mechanisms affected by experience conflict.

Main Methods:

• Participants estimated self-motion directions (headings) from simulated optic flow under varying short-term experience distributions.
• Three distributions (peak, hill, flat) created increasing conflict between learned long-term (straight-forward motion) and short-term experiences.
• Two Bayesian models were developed to differentiate the influence on sensory versus motor response systems.

Main Results:

• Heading estimates were biased towards the straight-ahead direction and prior stimuli, increasing with experience conflict.
• Both Bayesian models accurately predicted estimation biases.
• Model 1 predicted higher serial dependence variance, while Model 2 predicted higher straight-ahead bias variance, suggesting influence on both sensory and motor systems.

Conclusions:

• Simultaneous long- and short-term experiences significantly impact visual perception.
• Experience conflict modulates visual perception by affecting both sensory representations and motor response systems.
• Bayesian modeling provides insights into the neural mechanisms underlying these perceptual effects.