Attentional Eye Selection Affects Perception During Binocular Rivalry

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Binocular rivalry involves alternating perception between dissimilar images shown to each eye.
• Sensory eye dominance refers to the degree to which one eye's input dominates perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how attentional eye selection modulates sensory eye dominance during binocular rivalry.
• To examine the effect of stimulus size on this modulation.

Main Methods:

• Twelve participants viewed dichoptically presented gratings with different reversal rates.
• Binocular rivalry was assessed across five stimulus sizes under conditions of no attention and attention directed to the non-sighting eye.
• Perceptual alterations, dominance duration, and monocular/mixed percept proportions were measured.

Main Results:

• Without attention, the sighting eye showed greater perceptual dominance.
• Directing attention to the non-sighting eye shifted dominance toward that eye, particularly at 5° stimulus size.
• Selective attention did not affect the proportion of mixed percepts.

Conclusions:

• Voluntary attentional eye selection can modulate sensory eye dominance in binocular rivalry.
• The extent of this modulation is dependent on stimulus size.