Same stimulus, same temporal context, different percept? Individual differences in hysteresis and adaptation when perceiving multistable dot lattices

Abstract

How we perceptually organize a visual stimulus depends not only on the stimulus itself, but also on the temporal and spatial context in which the stimulus is presented as well as on the individual processing the stimulus and context. Earlier research found both attractive and repulsive context effects in perception (Snyder, Schwiedrzik, Vitela, & Melloni, 2015): tendencies to organize visual input in a similar way as preceding or simultaneous context stimuli (i.e., hysteresis, attraction) co-exist with tendencies that repel or move away the current percept from the organization that is most dominant in these contextual stimuli (i.e., adaptation, repulsion). These processes have been studied mostly on a group level (e.g., Schwiedrzik et al., 2014). The present study will investigate whether consistent individual differences exist in these attractive and repulsive temporal context effects, using multistable dot lattices as stimuli. In addition, the relation of the strength of these effects with the strength of individual biases for absolute orientations will be investigated. In this way, the study will provide insight in how different individuals combine previous input and experience with current input in their perception, and more generally, whether different individuals can perceive identical stimuli differently even within a similar context.