title: Attention modulation of stimulus rivalry under swapping paradigm.
abstract: Stimulus rivalry refers to the sustained periods of perceptual dominance that occur when different visual stimuli are swapped at a regular rate between eyes. This phenomenon is thought to involve mainly eye-independent mechanisms. Although several studies have reported that attention can increase image predominance in conventional binocular rivalry, it is unknown whether attention can specifically modulate stimulus rivalry. We addressed this question and manipulated the spatial characteristic of the stimuli to assess whether such an attention modulation could depend on visual processing hierarchy. The results showed that selective attention of stimulus rivalry significantly increased the predominance of the attended stimulus, regardless of the stimulus' spatial characteristics. No effect was observed on the swapping percept. The findings are discussed in the context of recent models attempting to characterize stimulus rivalry between eye-dependent and eye-independent levels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada; e-mail: doualot.audrey@courrier.uqam.ca.
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Doualot
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal QC H3C 3P8, Canada; e-mail: matsim2002@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mathieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Simard
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada, Research Center, CHU Sainte-Justine, Montréal, QC H3T 1C5, Canada, and Department of Ophthalmology, Université de Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada; e-mail: saint-amour.dave@uqam.ca.
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Saint-Amour
keywords: attention; binocular rivalry; eye-dependent mechanisms; eye-independent mechanisms; stimulus rivalry