title: Interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes in the perception of ambiguous figures.
abstract: Ambiguous figures reverse their appearance during prolonged viewing and can be perceived in two (or more) available interpretations. Both physical stimulus manipulations and cognitive control influence the perception of ambiguous figures, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. In the current study, the perception of an ambiguous figure was manipulated by adaptation to unambiguous figures and/or placing the ambiguous figure into a context of unambiguous figures. Our results indicate that both adaptation and context can effectively modulate perception of the ambiguous figure. When manipulated together, adaptation and context processes showed additive effects upon the perception of the ambiguous figure implying the independent mechanisms. Thus, top-down and bottom-up processes seem to influence the perception of the ambiguous figures independently and neither seems to be uniquely responsible for the generation of perceptual changes.
authors.affiliation: Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. mintaite@fmed.uc.pt
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Intaitė
authors.forename: Valdas
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Noreika
authors.forename: Alvydas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Šoliūnas
authors.forename: Christine M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Falter
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adaptation; Ambiguous figures; Context; Necker cube; Overlapping squares; Visual perception