Multistable perception across modalities: Resolving sensory ambiguity in vision and audition

人类的感觉系统不断地面对模糊的信息，然而感知经验通常是稳定的，独特的和明确的。一个有前途的方法来理解形成明确的感知模糊的感官证据是挑战这个过程的实验诱导知觉多稳定性。在多稳态中，刺激唤起不同的感知体验，这些体验随着时间的推移而交替，而感觉证据没有相应的变化。在大多数感觉模态中已经描述了多稳态现象。在视觉中，多稳定性通常被同义地用于竞争，反映了感知解释之间的竞争。例子包括内克尔立方体，鲁宾花瓶/面部反转，动态刺激（例如，明显运动）和双眼竞争，其中两个眼睛呈现冲突的刺激。在听力中，多稳态性是通过交替感知为绑定或未绑定的音调序列来研究的，并且通过言语转换来研究，其中重复呈现同一个单词会引起重排的感知（例如，life/fly）。考虑到科学界对这两种模式的多稳态性的兴趣，各自的研究领域令人惊讶地被隔离，并且在一个领域中众所周知的一些效应在另一个领域中大多被忽略。这一点甚至更值得注意，因为在这两个领域中，对于各种形式的多稳定性是否涉及一个共同的过程存在着相当多的辩论，而这样一个过程将预测到迄今为止所观察到的模式之间的联系。为了克服听觉和视觉多稳态之间的这种差距，本提案汇集了这两个领域的专业知识。除了知识的转移，具体的多模态范式将被开发，允许同时测量听觉和视觉的多稳态没有反应偏见或干扰。这种同时评估多个多稳态效应的可能性也允许评估个体内波动的作用。一种模式的成熟概念将在另一种模式中进行测试（例如，可预测性，多稳态对象形成，意志控制）。导致两种模式出现冲突的概念或范例（例如，刺激呈现的中断，具有两种以上解释的刺激序列）将通过尽可能接近地匹配相应的设计来系统地比较。作为主要结果，我们期望更好地理解在任何一种模式，一个联合框架，解决共同的原则-和可能的共同进程-跨模式，和分离的模式特定的模式一般的因素。由于多稳定性是感知组织在恒定的感官证据的模型情况下，结果也将扩大我们的理解，如何更高层次的（认知）因素塑造组织的人类感知超越特定模态的帐户。

Human sensory systems are continuously confronted with ambiguous information - yet perceptual experience is usually stable, unique and unambiguous. A promising approach to understand the formation of unambiguous percepts from ambiguous sensory evidence is to challenge this process experimentally by inducing perceptual multistability. In multistability, a stimulus evokes distinct perceptual experiences that alternate over time without a corresponding change in sensory evidence. Multistable phenomena have been described in most sensory modalities. In vision, multistability is typically used synonymously to rivalry, reflecting competition between perceptual interpretations. Examples include Necker's cube, Rubin's vase/face reversal, dynamic stimuli (e.g., apparent motion), and binocular rivalry, where the two eyes are presented with conflicting stimuli. In audition, multistability is studied with sequences of tones that are alternatingly perceived as bound or unbound, and with verbal transformations where the repetitive presentation of the same word induces the perception of rearrangements (e.g., life/fly). Given the scientific interest in multistability in either modality, the respective research fields are surprisingly segregated, and some effects well-known in one field are mostly ignored in the other. This is even more remarkable as in both fields there is considerable debate as to whether a common process is involved in various forms of multistability, and such a process would predict links between modalities beyond those observed so far. To overcome this gap between auditory and visual multistability, the present proposal brings together expertise from both fields. Besides the transfer of knowledge, specific multimodal paradigms will be developed that allow simultaneous measurement of auditory and visual multistability without response bias or interference. This possibility to assess several multistable effects at the same time also allows for assessing the role of intra-individual fluctuations. Well-established concepts from one modality will be tested in the other (e.g., predictability, multistable object formation, volitional control). Concepts or paradigms for which results in the two modalities appear to be in conflict (e.g., interruption of stimulus presentation, sequences for stimuli with more than two interpretations) will be systematically compared by matching the respective designs as closely as possible. As main results, we expect a better understanding of multistability in either modality, a joint framework that addresses common principles - and possibly common processes - across modalities, and a separation of modality-specific from modality-general factors. Since multistability is the model case for perceptual organization at constant sensory evidence, the results will also broaden our understanding as to how higher-level (cognitive) factors shape the organization of human perception beyond modality-specific accounts.