COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright A cross-modal investigation into the relationship between bistable perception and a global temporal mechanism by Amanda Louise Parker A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of a Doctor of Philosophy in Science School of Psychology The University of Sydney 2013 Table of contents ORGANISATION OF THE THESIS ......................................................................................................... I PUBLICATIONS INCLUDED IN THE THESIS .............................................................................................................. I ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... II GENERAL INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 Figure 1. The Necker cube and depth cues ................................................................................................ 2 Figure 2. Examples of perceptual bistability involving object interpretations .......................... 4 EARLY OBSERVATIONS OF PERCEPTUAL BISTABILITY ......................................................................................... 5 Figure 3. Ancient mosaics displaying bistable properties ................................................................... 6 Figure 4. The silhouette illusion ..................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 5. Illumination source can bias interpretation of relief or extension. ............................. 8 Figure 6. Reversible staircases ........................................................................................................................ 9 Figure 7. Historical figures who observed perceptual bistability ................................................. 11 Figure 8. Perceptual stimuli demonstrating Gestalt principles ..................................................... 12 Figure 9. Examples of binocular rivalry stimuli ................................................................................... 14 BINOCULAR RIVALRY: A UNIQUE TYPE OF PERCEPTUAL BISTABILITY ........................................................... 15 Figure 10. A child peeking .............................................................................................................................. 15 Figure 11. Distribution of perceptual dominance durations during rivalry ............................ 17 BINOCULAR RIVALRY IN RELATION TO STEREOPSIS ......................................................................................... 19 Figure 12. Wheatstone’s mirror stereoscope ......................................................................................... 20 THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF VISION ..................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 13. The anatomy of the visual system ......................................................................................... 22 Figure 14. Connections between visual cortical areas of the macaque monkey. ................... 24 NEURAL THEORIES OF BINOCULAR RIVALRY ..................................................................................................... 25 Figure 15. Piecemeal binocular rivalry stimuli ..................................................................................... 29 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF ATTENTION ........................................................................................... 31 Figure 16. Visual search arrays ................................................................................................................... 33 Figure 17. Feature Integration Theory .................................................................................................... 34 Figure 18. An example of a sudden onset visual search trial .......................................................... 35 BINOCULAR RIVALRY AND ATTENTION ............................................................................................................... 37 Figure 19. Results from Meng & Tong, 2004 .......................................................................................... 39 PERCEPTUAL BISTABILITY IN NON-VISUAL SENSE MODALITIES. .................................................................... 41 HYPOTHESIS ............................................................................................................................................................ 42 1. IS THERE A COMMON MECHANISM UNDERLYING PERCEPTUAL BISTABILITY, AND WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THIS MECHANISM? ............................................................................................. 43 2. IS THIS COMMON MECHANISM RELATED TO EXOGENOUS PERCEPTUAL SELECTION? ................................ 43 MONOCULAR RIVALRY EXHIBITS THREE HALLMARKS OF BINOCULAR RIVALRY: EVIDENCE FOR COMMON PROCESSES .......................................................................................... 46 OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................................... 46 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................ 46 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 47 Figure 1. Monocular rivalry between complex pictures ................................................................... 49 EXPERIMENT 1 ........................................................................................................................................................ 50 METHOD ................................................................................................................................................................... 51 OBSERVERS .............................................................................................................................................................. 51 STIMULI AND APPARATUS ..................................................................................................................................... 51 Table of Contents PROCEDURE ............................................................................................................................................................. 52 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................... 52 Figure 2. Binocular and monocular rivalry alternation rate ......................................................... 54 EXPERIMENT 2 ........................................................................................................................................................ 55 METHOD ................................................................................................................................................................... 55 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................... 56 Figure 3. Colour and binocular and monocular rivalry alternation rates ................................ 56 EXPERIMENT 3 ........................................................................................................................................................ 57 METHOD ................................................................................................................................................................... 58 OBSERVERS .............................................................................................................................................................. 58 APPARATUS ............................................................................................................................................................. 58 STIMULI .................................................................................................................................................................... 58