Effects of various parameters on binocular rivalry

Abstract

In daily life, the two eyes see similar images and there is no perceptual competition. The input from the eyes are compatible and the images are fused. On the other hand, binocular rivalry occurs when two eyes are presented with incompatible visual stimuli. In this condition, the perception alternates every few seconds from one monocular stimulus to the other or an untastable piecemeal mixture is seen. Binocular rivalry is affected by many parameters like contrast, form and motion velocity. In this study, effects of flickering frequency, duty factor, size and luminance of the monocular image on binocular rivalry were tested. It was expected that the rivalry percentage would be decreased when the stimuli is flickered compared to static stimuli and also it was expected that the rivalry percentage would be increased as the duty factor is increased, but would stay constant with respect to frequency. The visual rivaling stimuli used were a square and a disc. The results showed that the rivalry occurrence was reduced when stimuli were flickered, compared to static stimuli. However, the frequency or duty factor of the flicker did not have any effect on the rivalry time. Moreover, the location of monocular images were interchanged in order to test eye asymmetry effects. No such effects were found. Additionally, changes in the size and the luminance of the target did not cause any differences in the rivalry time. This type of stimuli can be used for binocular contrast experiments since the rivalry percentage is found to be reduced in flickering stimuli.|Keywords: Binocular rivalry, Binocular fusion, Flickering stimuli, Frequency, Duty factor, Luminance