Perceptual switching, eye movements, and the bus paradox.

Full Abstract

According to a widely cited finding by Ellis and Stark (1978 Perception 7 575-581), the duration of eye fixations is longer at the instant of perceptual reversal of an ambiguous figure than before or after the reversal. However, long fixations are more likely to include samples of an independent random event than are short fixations. This sampling bias would produce the pattern of results also when no correlation exists between fixation duration and perceptual reversals. When an appropriate correction is applied to the measurement of fixation durations, the effect disappears. In fact, there are fewer actual button-presses during the long intervals than would be expected by chance. Moving-window analyses performed on eye-fixation data reveal that no unique eye event is associated with switching behaviour. However, several indicators, such as blink frequency, saccade frequency, and the direction of the saccade, are each differentially sensitive to perceptual and response-related aspects of the switching process. The time course of these indicators depicts switching behaviour as a process of cascaded stages.

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Author information

Author/s: Ito, Junji (J); Nikolaev, Andrey R (AR); Luman, Marjolein (M); Aukes, Maartje F (MF); Nakatani, Chie (C); van Leeuwen, Cees (C);

Affiliation: Laboratory for Perceptual Dynamics, Riken BSI, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198 Japan.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Perception (Perception), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-; vol 32 (issue 6) : pp 681-98

Dates: Created 2003/08/01; Completed 2003/10/09; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12892429, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Analysis of Variance
Blinking - physiology
Female
Fixation, Ocular - physiology
Humans

Humans
Male
Poisson Distribution
Psychophysics
Saccades - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology

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