title: Orientation uncertainty reduces perceived obliquity.
abstract: The influence of prejudice on perception should be greatest when certainty about stimulus identity is least. We exploited this relationship to reveal visual biases for the cardinal orientations: vertical and horizontal. Specifically, when we increased the variance of orientations in an array of grating patches, estimates of the mean became less oblique. This result is consistent with a stable prior, or prejudice, for those orientations most prevalent in natural scenes.
authors.affiliation: Optometry Department, City University, London, UK.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tomassini
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.forename: Joshua A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Solomon
mesh_terms: D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*