Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T19:46:37.114Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Resolution of binocular rivalry: Perceptual misbinding of color

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2006

SANG WOOK HONG
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
STEVEN K. SHEVELL
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Is neural binding of color and form required for perception of a unified colored object? Individual cells selectively tuned to both color and orientation are proposed to moot the binding problem. This study reveals perceptual misbinding of color, thereby revealing separate neural representations of color and form followed by a subsequent binding process. Low luminance-contrast, rivalrous chromatic gratings were presented dichoptically. Each grating had alternating chromatic and gray stripes (e.g., red/gray in the left eye, green/gray in the right eye). Observers viewed the two rivalrous, 2 cpd gratings for 1 min. The duration of exclusive visibility was measured for four percepts: left-eye stimulus, right-eye stimulus, fusion of the two colors, or a two-color grating (e.g. a red/green grating). The percept of a two-color grating (misbinding) was observed with Michelson luminance contrast in the grating up to 20%. In general, for a given level of luminance contrast either misbinding (low luminance contrast) or color mixture (high luminance contrast) was observed, but not both of them. The perceived two-color gratings show that two rivalrous chromaticities are both represented neurally when color and form are combined to give a unified percept. “Resolution” of competing chromatic signals from the two eyes is not restricted to color dominance and color mixture. The transition from misbinding to color mixture by increasing luminance contrast shows that luminance edges have an important role in correct localization of color.

Type
PERCEPTION
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Creed, R.S. (1935). Observation on binocular fusion and rivalry. Journal of Physiology 84, 381392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Weert, C.M.M. & Wade, N.J. (1988). Compound binocular rivalry. Vision Research 28, 10311040.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fellaman, D.J. & Van Essen, D.C. (1991). Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate visual cortex. Cerebral Cortex 1, 147.Google Scholar
Friedman, H.S., Zhou, H., & von der Heydt, R. (2003). The coding of uniform color figures in monkey visual cortex. Journal of Physiology 548, 593613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikeda, M. & Sagawa, K. (1979). Binocular color fusion limit. Journal of Optical Society America 69, 316321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, E.N., Hawken, M.J., & Shapley, R. (2001). The spatial transformation of color in the primary visual cortex of the macaque monkey. Nature Neuroscience 4, 409416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, E.N., Hawken, M.J., & Shapley, R. (2004). Cone inputs in macaque primary visual cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 91, 25012514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovács, I., Papathomas, T.V., Yang, M., & Feher, A. (1996). When the brain changes its mind: interocular grouping during binocular rivalry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 93, 1550815511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, S.-H. & Blake, R. (2004). A fresh look at interocular grouping during binocular rivalry. Vision Research 44, 983991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Livingstone, M.S. & Hubel, D.H. (1988). Segregation of form, color, movement, and depth: Anatomy, physiology, and perception. Science 240, 740749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, D.I.A. & Boynton, R.M. (1979). Chromaticity diagram showing cone excitation by stimuli of equal luminance. Journal or the Optical Society of America 69, 11831185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stirling, W. (1999). An experiment on binocular colour vision with half-penny postage stamps. Journal of Physiology 27, 2324.Google Scholar
Treisman, A. & Gelade, G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology 12, 97136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treisman, A. & Schmidt, H. (1982). Illusory conjunctions in perception of objects. Cognitive Psychology 14, 107141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeki, S. (1993). A Vision of the Brain. Cambridge: Blackwell.