Talk by Dr. Thorsten Albrecht (University Göttingen): "Processes contributing to conscious visual perception under visual masking: Evidence from monocular, dichoptic, and 'half-binocular' stimulation"

Visual backward masking refers to the phenomenon in which a trailing mask stimulus interferes with the visibility of a preceding target stimulus. Most theoretical models have focused on explaining the mechanisms that lead to masking — that is, to the invisibility of the target. Here, we present a complementary approach in which we seek to identify the processes and mechanisms that contribute to target visibility. Our results provide evidence for the involvement of temporal integration and segregation processes, as well as motion perception mechanisms. Importantly, individual differences in the relative weighting of these processes account for both inter-individual variability and stimulus-dependent differences in the shape of masking functions. To further specify the underlying processes, we compared masking effects across monocular, dichoptic, and "half-binocular" stimulation conditions, in which the target is presented to one eye while the mask is presented to both eyes (or vice versa). Under monocular and half-binocular stimulation, the data revealed a characteristic U-shaped relationship between target visibility and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). In contrast, dichoptic presentation yielded markedly reduced visibility at short SOAs, while visibility was slightly enhanced at longer SOAs. This pattern of results is consistent with models that localize temporal integration predominantly within monocular channels, whereas suppression mechanisms appear to operate at both monocular and interocular levels. Furthermore, interocular suppression may be mitigated by feedback from binocularly matched signals.

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