Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
J Vis. 2023 Sep 1;23(10):15. doi: 10.1167/jov.23.10.15.
Binocular rivalry (BR) is a visual phenomenon in which perception alternates between two non-fusible images presented to each eye. Transition periods between dominant and suppressed images are marked by mixed percepts, where participants report fragments of each image being dynamically perceived. Interestingly, BR remains robust even when typical images are subdivided and presented in complementary patches to each eye, a phenomenon termed interocular grouping (IOG). The objective of the present study was to determine if increasing grouping demand in the context of BR changes the perceptual experience of rivalry. In 48 subjects with normal vision, mean dominant and mixed percept durations were recorded for classic BR and IOG conditions with increasing grouping demands from two, four, and six patches. We found that, as grouping demands increased, the duration of mixed periods increased. Indeed, durations of dominant and mixed percepts, as well as percentage of time spent in dominant or mixed state, differed significantly across conditions. However, durations of global dominant percepts remained relatively stable and saturated at about 1.5 seconds, despite the exponential increase in possible mixed combinations. Evidence shows that this saturation followed a nonlinear trend. The data also indicate that grouping across the vertical meridian is slightly more stable than for the horizontal meridian. Finally, individual differences in speed of alternation identified during BR were maintained in all interocular grouping conditions. These results provide new information about binocular visual spatial integration and will be useful for future studies of the underlying neural substrates and models of binocular vision.
双眼竞争（BR）是一种视觉现象，其中感知在呈现给每只眼睛的两个不可融合的图像之间交替。在主导和被抑制的图像之间的过渡期间，会出现混合感知，参与者报告每个图像的片段被动态感知。有趣的是，即使典型的图像被细分并以互补的补丁呈现给每只眼睛，BR 仍然很稳健，这种现象称为眼间分组（IOG）。本研究的目的是确定在 BR 背景下增加分组需求是否会改变竞争的感知体验。在 48 名具有正常视力的受试者中，记录了经典 BR 和 IOG 条件下的平均主导和混合感知持续时间，分组需求从两个、四个和六个补丁增加。我们发现，随着分组需求的增加，混合期的持续时间增加。实际上，主导和混合感知的持续时间以及处于主导或混合状态的时间百分比在不同条件下有显著差异。然而，全局主导感知的持续时间相对稳定，在大约 1.5 秒处饱和，尽管可能的混合组合呈指数增长。证据表明这种饱和遵循非线性趋势。数据还表明，垂直子午线的分组比水平子午线略稳定。最后，在 BR 期间确定的交替速度个体差异在所有眼间分组条件下均保持不变。这些结果提供了关于双眼视觉空间整合的新信息，将有助于未来对双眼视觉的潜在神经基质和模型的研究。
