Stochastic or systematic? Seemingly random perceptual switching in bistable events triggered by transient unconscious cues.

What we see is a function not only of incoming stimulation, but of unconscious inferences in visual processing. Among the most powerful demonstrations of this are bistable events, but what causes the percepts of such events to switch? Beyond voluntary effort and stochastic processing, we explore the ways in which ongoing dynamic percepts may switch as a function of the content of brief, unconscious, independent cues. We introduced transient disambiguating occlusion cues into the Spinning Dancer silhouette animation. The dancer is bistable in terms of depth and rotation direction, but many observers see extended rotation in the same direction, interrupted only rarely by involuntary switches. Observers failed to notice these occasional disambiguating cues, but their impact was strong and systematic: Cues typically led to seemingly stochastic perceptual switches shortly thereafter, especially when conflicting with the current percept. These results show how the content of incoming information determines and constrains online conscious perception-even when neither the content nor the brute existence of that information ever reaches awareness. Thus, just as phenomenological ease does not imply a corresponding lack of underlying effortful computation, phenomenological randomness should not be taken to imply a corresponding lack of underlying systematicity.