title: Characterising switching behaviour in perceptual multi-stability.
abstract: When people experience an unchanging sensory input for a long period of time, their perception tends to switch stochastically and unavoidably between alternative interpretations of the sensation; a phenomenon known as perceptual bi-stability or multi-stability. The huge variability in the experimental data obtained in such paradigms makes it difficult to distinguish typical patterns of behaviour, or to identify differences between switching patterns. Here we propose a new approach to characterising switching behaviour based upon the extraction of transition matrices from the data, which provide a compact representation that is well-understood mathematically. On the basis of this representation we can characterise patterns of perceptual switching, visualise and simulate typical switching patterns, and calculate the likelihood of observing a particular switching pattern. The proposed method can support comparisons between different observers, experimental conditions and even experiments. We demonstrate the insights offered by this approach using examples from our experiments investigating multi-stability in auditory streaming. However, the methodology is generic and thus widely applicable in studies of multi-stability in any domain.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK. sdenham@plymouth.ac.uk
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Denham
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bendixen
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mill
authors.forename: Dénes
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tóth
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wennekers
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Coath
authors.forename: Tamás
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bőhm
authors.forename: Orsolya
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Szalardy
authors.forename: István
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Winkler
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011984:Sensory Receptor Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D013269:Stochastic Processes