Effects of involuntary attention following binocular rivalry
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1
Psychology, University of Leipzig, Germany
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2
Department of Psychology, University of Otago, New Zealand
During binocular rivalry perceptual awareness fluctuates between two dissimilar monocular images. What is the role of attention in these perceptual alternations? Voluntary attention has some limited control over rivalry; involuntary attention slows rivalry alternations. We investigated whether taking attention away from the rival stimuli influences the time course of event-related potentials (ERPs). To induce periods of binocular rivalry we presented one grating to one eye and a grating of different orientation to the other. We also induced periods of binocular fusion: we presented one grating to one eye and a grating of the same orientation to the other. Our events were transitions from fusion to fusion and rivalry to rivalry (in which the orientation of both gratings changed in both eyes), and fusion to rivalry and rivalry to fusion (in which the orientation of one grating changed). We had two tasks. In one, observers had to report changes in perceived orientation, focusing their attention on the images. In the other, observers had to report changes in a fixation cross, taking attention away from the images. In both tasks we measured ERPs to the onset of either fusion or rivalry. We found that taking attention away from the images enhanced the N1-component to the transitions, but only when rivalry was the prior condition. This is opposite to the usual effects of attention on N1, suggesting that when observers are not aware of binocular rivalry due to another task, transitions evoke involuntary attention.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Consciousness
Citation:
Veser
S,
O’Shea
R and
Roeber
U
(2008). Effects of involuntary attention following binocular rivalry.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.185
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Received:
08 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
08 Dec 2008.
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Correspondence:
Sandra Veser, Psychology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, veser@rz.uni-leipzig.de