scholarly journals Age-dependency in binocular rivalry is reflected by exclusive percepts, not mixed percepts

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elahe Arani ◽  
Raymond van Ee ◽  
Richard van Wezel

AbstractSome aspects of decision-making are known to decline with normal aging. One of the known perceptual decision-making processes which is vastly studied is binocular rivalry. It is well-established that the older the person, the slower the perceptual dynamics. However, the underlying neurobiological cause is unknown. So, to understand how age affects visual decision-making, we investigated age-related changes in perception during binocular rivalry. In binocular rivalry, the image presented to one eye competes for perceptual dominance with the image presented to the other eye. Perception during binocular rivalry consists of alternations between exclusive percepts. However, frequently, mixed percepts with combinations of the two monocular images occur. The mixed percepts reflect a transition from the percept of one eye to the other but frequently the transitions do not complete the full cycle and the previous exclusive percept becomes dominant again. The transitional idiosyncrasy of mixed percepts has not been studied systematically in different age groups. Previously, we have found evidence for adaptation and noise, and not inhibition, as underlying neural factors that are related to age-dependent perceptual decisions. Based on those conclusions, we predict that mixed percepts/inhibitory interactions should not change with aging. Therefore, in an old and a young age group, we studied binocular rivalry dynamics considering both exclusive and mixed percepts by using two paradigms: percept-choice and percept-switch. We found a decrease in perceptual alternation Probability for older adults, although the rate of mixed percepts did not differ significantly compared to younger adults. Interestingly, the mixed percepts play a very similar transitional idiosyncrasy in our different age groups. Further analyses suggest that differences in synaptic depression, gain modulation at the input level, and/or slower execution of motor commands are not the determining factors to explain these findings. We then argue that changes in perceptual decisions at an older age are the result of changes in neural adaptation and noise.

i-Perception ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 204166952110175
Author(s):  
Kirsten Smith ◽  
Vera Kempe ◽  
Lara Wood

When drawing faces, people show a systematic bias of placing the eyes higher up the head than they are placed in reality. This study investigated the development of this phenomenon while removing the potential confound of drawing ability. Participants ( N = 124) in three age groups (3–5 yo, 10–11 yo, and adults) reconstructed two foam faces: one from observation and one from memory. The high eye placement bias was remarkably robust with mean eye placement in every condition significantly higher than the original faces. The same bias was not shown for mouth placement. Eye placement was highest for the youngest participants and for the memory conditions. The results suggest that an eye placement bias is not caused by the motor skill demands required for drawing and lend evidence to the suggestion that an eye placement bias is caused by perceptual and decision-making processes.


2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1641) ◽  
pp. 20130211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Blake ◽  
Jan Brascamp ◽  
David J. Heeger

This essay critically examines the extent to which binocular rivalry can provide important clues about the neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Our ideas are presented within the framework of four questions about the use of rivalry for this purpose: (i) what constitutes an adequate comparison condition for gauging rivalry's impact on awareness, (ii) how can one distinguish abolished awareness from inattention, (iii) when one obtains unequivocal evidence for a causal link between a fluctuating measure of neural activity and fluctuating perceptual states during rivalry, will it generalize to other stimulus conditions and perceptual phenomena and (iv) does such evidence necessarily indicate that this neural activity constitutes a neural correlate of consciousness? While arriving at sceptical answers to these four questions, the essay nonetheless offers some ideas about how a more nuanced utilization of binocular rivalry may still provide fundamental insights about neural dynamics, and glimpses of at least some of the ingredients comprising neural correlates of consciousness, including those involved in perceptual decision-making.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 955-966 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. McGovern ◽  
Aoife Hayes ◽  
Simon P. Kelly ◽  
Redmond G. O’Connell

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Manning ◽  
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers ◽  
Anthony Norcia ◽  
Gaia Scerif ◽  
Udo Boehm

Children make faster and more accurate decisions about perceptual information as they get older, but it is unclear how different aspects of the decision-making process change with age. Here, we used hierarchical Bayesian diffusion models to decompose performance in a perceptual task into separate processing components, testing age-related differences in model parameters and links to neural data. We collected behavioural and EEG data from 96 six- to twelve-year-olds and 20 adults completing a motion discrimination task. We used a component decomposition technique to identify two response-locked EEG components with ramping activity preceding the response in children and adults: one with activity that was maximal over centro-parietal electrodes and one that was maximal over occipital electrodes. Younger children had lower drift rates (reduced sensitivity), wider boundary separation (increased response caution) and longer non-decision times than older children and adults. Yet model comparisons suggested that the best model of children’s data included age effects only on drift rate and boundary separation (not non-decision time). Next we extracted the slope of ramping activity in our EEG components and covaried these with drift rate. The slopes of both EEG components related positively to drift rate, but the best model with EEG covariates included only the centro-parietal component. By decomposing performance into distinct components and relating them to neural markers, diffusion models have the potential to identify the reasons why children with developmental conditions perform differently to typically developing children - and to uncover processing differences inapparent in the response time and accuracy data alone.


Author(s):  
Julia Watzek ◽  
Will Whitham ◽  
David A. Washburn ◽  
Sarah F. Brosnan

The Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD) is a simple probability puzzle famous for its counterintuitive solution. Participants initially choose among three doors, one of which conceals a prize. A different door is opened and shown not to contain the prize. Participants are then asked whether they would like to stay with their original choice or switch to the other remaining door. Although switching doubles the chances of winning, people overwhelmingly choose to stay with their original choice. To assess how experience and the chance of winning affect decisions in the MHD, we used a comparative approach to test 264 college students, 24 capuchin monkeys, and 7 rhesus macaques on a nonverbal, computerized version of the game. Participants repeatedly experienced the outcome of their choices and we varied the chance of winning by changing the number of doors (three or eight). All species quickly and consistently switched doors, especially in the eight-door condition. After the computer task, we presented humans with the classic text version of the MHD to test whether they would generalize the successful switch strategy from the computer task. Instead, participants showed their characteristic tendency to stick with their pick, regardless of the number of doors. This disconnect between strategies in the classic version and a repeated nonverbal task with the same underlying probabilities may arise because they evoke different decision-making processes, such as explicit reasoning versus implicit learning.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Sara Nikolić

Abstract Colourful zigzags, arcade game motifs, geometric figures, pseudo-frames of windows and even infantile drawings of flora and fauna – those are just some of the visible symptoms of the aesthetical and urbanistic chaotic condition also known as Polish pasteloza. One of the most common readings is that the excuse of thermal insulation is being (ab)used in order to radically erase the urbanistic, cultural and political heritage of Polish People’s Republic (PPR) from the city landscape. On the other hand, inhabitants of ‘pastelized’ housing estates claim to be satisfied not only with the insulation but also with their role in decision-making processes. A sense of alienation from one’s home seems to have gone away, together with the centralized state administration, and it is being replaced by citizen participation. The possibility of vindication of pasteloza’s ‘crimes against aesthetics’ will be deliberated in this paper – in order to pave a path for more complex understanding of this phenomenon that could offer a solution for achieving a compromise between aesthetics and civic participation in post-transition processes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen McGrath ◽  
Arlene Astell

Introduction While research has investigated the factors influencing acquisition and use of technologies/assistive devices by older adults, few studies have addressed the decision-making processes regarding technology adoption of older adults with age-related vision loss. Method This critical ethnography engaged 10 older adults with age-related vision loss in narrative interviews, participant observation sessions, and semi-structured in-depth interviews to understand their decision-making processes related to the acquisition and use of low vision assistive devices to support occupational engagement. Findings Study findings focused on the benefits and barriers to technology acquisition and use. Benefits of technology acquisition included: enhanced occupational engagement; independence; safety; insurance; and validation of the disability, while the barriers to technology acquisition included: cost; training; usability; lack of awareness of low vision rehabilitation services; fear of being taken advantage of; and desire to preserve a preferred self-image. Conclusion Considering the low uptake of vision rehabilitation services, the study findings are important to occupational therapy. A better understanding of the perceived benefits and barriers to technology adoption from the perspective of older adults will help occupational therapists maximize treatment planning designed to enhance the occupational engagement of older adults aging with vision loss.


1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth S. Paul

AbstractAnimal rights campaigners and scientists working with animals completed anonymous questionnaires in which they were asked to report, not only on their own beliefs and ideas about the animal experimentation debate, but also on those they perceived the opposing group to hold. Both groups of participants tended to have a negative and somewhat extreme view of the other. But they did have an accurate grasp of the arguments and defenses commonly offered on both sides of the debate, and showed some agreement concerning the relative capacity of different animals to suffer. Differences appeared in the level of the phylogenetic hierarchy at which participants thought animals might be capable of suffering, and in their decision-making processes regarding the admissibility of animal experiments.


1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Limoges

There was a time when the mobilization of experts was a taken-for-granted, unproblematic aspect of decision-making processes. That confidence has vanished. Ascertaining the significance of expertise now requires a reconsideration of the dynamics of controversies. The current view still assimilates controversy to the medieval exercise of the disputatio in which two parties argue one against the other. A non-reductionist view is needed to take fully into account the diversity of worlds of relevance involved in the dynamics of any public controversy. Only then is it possible to understand how decision making is predicated upon associations of worlds of relevance, and how expertise is actually a collective learning process which sets the boundary conditions for the efficacy of individual experts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-104
Author(s):  
Nadine Nell-Tuor ◽  
Nina Haldimann

Abstract The class council is a teaching format which takes place regularly, aiming at the teacher stepping back from his/her conventional role as the organizing authority in order to allow the students to participate directly in decision-making processes concerning their everyday school life. This format results in a unique interactional constellation among the participants. In this article, we explore this interactional constellation from the perspective of conversation and interaction analysis. On the basis of videographies of class council sessions in which students and teachers occupy different participation roles, we ask how those roles are negotiated interactively. With a specific focus on the teacher and the moderator (student), we ask to what extent the teacher is able to delegate leadership responsibility among the group. It is shown that teachers are only partly able to do so. Often, teachers influence the interaction on a multimodal level. The challenge of organizing the class council lies in the need for the participants to accomplish different (and in part incompatible) interactional orders: on the one hand, teachers as well as students have to consider their specific participation roles; on the other hand, their participation roles are framed institutionally and cannot easily be changed.


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