Characterizing serial dependence as an attraction to prior response.

Abstract

Serial dependence refers to a common misperception that can occur between subsequently observed stimuli. Observers misreport the current stimulus as being more similar to the previous stimulus than it objectively is. It has been proposed that this bias may reflect an attraction of the current percept to prior percept (Fischer & Whitney, 2014). Alternatively, serial dependence has also been proposed to be the result of an assimilative effect between observer decisions (Fritsche, Mostert, & de Lange, 2017; Pascucci, Mancuso, Santandrea, Libera, Plomp, & Chelazzi, 2019). Lying within this debate is the issue of how we quantify serial dependence. Should this be as a bias induced by prior stimuli or by prior responses? We investigated this by manipulating the orientation of the current stimuli such that they fell between previous stimulus and previous response. We observed an attraction to previous response and a concomitant repulsion from previous stimulus. This suggests that the attractive effect of serial dependence in orientation judgments is best quantified in relation to prior response.