Adaptive center-surround interactions in human vision revealed during binocular rivalry.
We used binocular rivalry as a psychophysical probe to explore center-surround interactions in orientation, motion and color processing. Addition of the surround matching one of the rival targets dramatically altered rivalry dynamics. For all visual sub-modalities tested, predominance of the high-contrast rival target matched to the surround was greatly reduced-a result that disappeared at low contrast. At low contrast, addition of the surround boosted dominance of orientation and motion targets matched to the surround. This contrast-dependent modulation of center-surround interactions seems to be a general property of the visual system and may reflect an adaptive balance between surround suppression and spatial summation.
Paffen
Chris L E
CL
Helmholtz Research Institute, Psychonomics Division, Utrecht University Heidelberglaan 2, The Netherlands. c.paffen@fss.uu.nl
Tadin
Duje
D
te Pas
Susan F
SF
Blake
Randolph
R
Verstraten
Frans A J
FA
D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011601:Psychophysics; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D015357:Vision Disparity / Q000502:physiology*; D015348:Vision, Binocular / Q000502:physiology*