Binocular rivalry

Binocular rivalry is a phenomenon of visual perception in which perception alternates between different images presented to each eye.[1]

An image demonstrating binocular rivalry. If one views the image with red-cyan 3D glasses, the text will alternate between red and blue. 3D red cyan glasses are recommended to view this image correctly.
Binocular rivalry. If one views the image with red-cyan 3D glasses, the angled Warp and weft will alternate between the red and the blue lines. 3D red cyan glasses are recommended to view this image correctly.

When one image is presented to one eye and a very different image is presented to the other (also known as dichoptic presentation), instead of the two images being seen superimposed, one image is seen for a few moments,[2] then the other, then the first, and so on, randomly for as long as one cares to look. For example, if a set of vertical lines is presented to one eye, and a set of horizontal lines to the same region of the retina of the other, sometimes the vertical lines are seen with no trace of the horizontal lines, and sometimes the horizontal lines are seen with no trace of the vertical lines.

At transitions, brief, unstable composites of the two images may be seen. For example, the vertical lines may appear one at a time to obscure the horizontal lines from the left or from the right, like a traveling wave, switching slowly one image for the other.[3] Binocular rivalry occurs between any stimuli that differ sufficiently,[4] including simple stimuli like lines of different orientation and complex stimuli like different alphabetic letters or different pictures such as of a face and of a house.

Very small differences between images, however, might yield singleness of vision and stereopsis. Binocular rivalry has been extensively studied in the last century.[5][page needed] In recent years[when?] neuroscientists have used neuroimaging techniques and single-cell recording techniques to identify neural events responsible for the perceptual dominance of a given image and for the perceptual alternations.

  1. ^ Blake, Randolph; Logothetis, Nikos K. (1 January 2002). "Visual competition". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 3 (1): 13–21. doi:10.1038/nrn701. PMID 11823801. S2CID 8410171.
  2. ^ Wolfe, Jeremy M (1983). "Influence of spatial frequency, luminance, and duration on binocular rivalry and abnormal fusion of briefly presented dichoptic stimuli". Perception. 12 (4): 447–456. doi:10.1068/p120447. PMID 6672740. S2CID 26294790.
  3. ^ Wilson, Hugh R.; Blake, Randolph; Lee, Sang-Hun (30 August 2001). "Dynamics of travelling waves in visual perception". Nature. 412 (6850): 907–910. Bibcode:2001Natur.412..907W. doi:10.1038/35091066. PMID 11528478. S2CID 4431136.
  4. ^ Blake, Randolph (1989). "A neural theory of binocular rivalry". Psychological Review. 96 (1): 145–167. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.96.1.145. PMID 2648445.
  5. ^ Alais, David; Blake, Randolph, eds. (2005). Binocular rivalry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262012126. OCLC 990669529.