Because we live in a visually complex world, one of the major tasks of vision is to resolve ambiguous information into a stable image of our surroundings. By presenting subjects with differing versions of visually ambiguous images, researchers have identified the factors that are important for perceptual stabilization, a process that allows the visual system to overcome conflicting information and maintain a steady perception of an image.

Visual perception is generally accurate and stable. However, when a visual stimulus provides conflicting or insufficient information, perception can be bi-stable or even multi-stable that is, the way an image is perceived by the viewer can change or switch back and forth over time. By studying the visual system's solution when faced with such ambiguous conditions, Dr. Xiangchuan Chen from the University of Science and Technology of China and Dr. Sheng He from the University of Minnesota sought to tease out clues to the underlying mechanisms of visual perception.

Earlier research had shown that perception can be stabilized when the ambiguous visual stimuli were presented intermittently. Memory of the recent perceptual experience had been proposed to explain this stabilization effect. But the nature of this "perceptual memory" has remained unclear.

In the new work, Drs. Chen and He showed that the mechanism responsible for perceptual stabilization was independent of the memory of object identity, including various qualities possessed by an object, such as color. Using a rotating cylinder image that prompts bi-stable perception, they showed that changing the color, the moving speed of the dots on the cylinder, the size, or the stereo depth of the cylinder had no or minimal effect on the perceptual stabilization of the rotating cylinder. In contrast, stabilization depended on the stimulus location where in the visual field the object fell.

In a second set of tests, ambiguity in the pres
'"/>

Contact: Heidi Hardman
hhardman@cell.com
617-397-2879
Cell Press
7-Jun-2004

Page: 1 2
Related biology news :

1. New physical activity opinion survey demonstrates perceptions do not meet reality
2. New discovery may help transplants survive
3. Chipmunks descended from ancestors that survived last ice age, scientists say
4. Helping coral reefs survive climate change
5. Mechanism that enables fetus to survive in mother under study
6. Common microbes survive pressures equal to those found at 50 kilometers inside the Earths crust
7. Rock-eating microbes survive in deep ocean off Peru
8. Hitchhiking molecules could have survived fiery comet collisions with Earth, UC Berkeley experiment shows
9. Helping energy conservation projects survive the budget axe
10. Deadly to cattle and humans, prions may help other organisms survive, researchers find
11. Life in the inferno: researchers identify factors that determine where microorganisms can survive in the hellish world deep underground