VSS 2021 - Individual differences in attractive and repulsive context effects on shape categorization

Abstract

How we perceive a visual form not only depends on the currently presented shape, but also on the temporal context in which it is shown. Earlier research found both attractive and repulsive context effects in perception. Tendencies to see the current stimulus similar to how the previous stimulus was seen (i.e., hysteresis, attraction) co-exist with tendencies that repel the current percept away from the organization for which there was most evidence in the previous stimulus (i.e., adaptation, repulsion). While previous research focused on group-level effects of temporal context, this study investigated whether everyone shows effects of the previous percept and the previous stimulus in the expected direction, and whether possible individual differences in these attractive and repulsive temporal context effects are consistent. Participants (N=209) conducted a perceptual categorization task with two series of abstract morph figures as stimuli, for which average temporal context effects were identified before. A Bayesian multilevel logistic regression analysis on the current percept was conducted to get estimates for the size of the hysteresis and adaptation effect per participant.

Date
May 23, 2021
Location
online