Institute of Psychology III, University of Würzburg.
Department of Neurology, University Hospital Würzburg.
Cogn Sci. 2024 Feb;48(2):e13414. doi: 10.1111/cogs.13414.
Spontaneous eye blinks are modulated around perceptual events. Our previous study, using a visual ambiguous stimulus, indicated that blink probability decreases before a reported perceptual switch. In the current study, we tested our hypothesis that an absence of blinks marks a time in which perceptual switches are facilitated in- and outside the visual domain. In three experiments, presenting either a visual motion quartet in light or darkness or a bistable auditory streaming stimulus, we found a co-occurrence of blink rate reduction with increased perceptual switch probability. In the visual domain, perceptual switches induced by a short interruption of visual input (blank) allowed an estimate of the timing of the perceptual event with respect to the motor response. This provided the first evidence that the blink reduction was not a consequence of the perceptual switch. Importantly, by showing that the time between switches and the previous blink was significantly longer than the inter-blink interval, our studies allowed to conclude that perceptual switches did not happen at random but followed a prolonged period of nonblinking. Correspondingly, blink rate and switch rate showed an inverse relationship. Our study supports the idea that the absence or presence of blinks maps perceptual processes independent of the sensory modality.
自发性眨眼会受到感知事件的调节。我们之前的研究使用视觉歧义刺激表明，在报告的感知转换之前，眨眼的概率会降低。在当前的研究中，我们检验了一个假设，即在视觉和非视觉领域中，眨眼的缺失标志着感知转换得到促进的时间。在三个实验中，我们分别呈现了光或黑暗中的视觉运动四重奏或双稳态听觉流刺激，发现眨眼率降低与感知转换概率增加同时发生。在视觉领域中，通过短暂中断视觉输入（空白）引起的感知转换允许估计感知事件相对于运动反应的时间。这首次提供了证据表明眨眼减少不是感知转换的结果。重要的是，通过显示转换之间和前一次眨眼之间的时间明显长于眨眼间隔，我们的研究可以得出结论，感知转换不是随机发生的，而是在长时间不眨眼之后发生的。相应地，眨眼率和转换率呈反比关系。我们的研究支持这样一种观点，即眨眼的有无映射了独立于感觉模态的感知过程。
