Individual differences reveal similarities in serial dependence effects across perceptual tasks, but not to oculomotor tasks.

Abstract

Serial dependence effects have been observed across a wide range of perceptual and oculomotor tasks. This opens up the question of whether these effects observed share underlying mechanisms. Here we measured serial dependence effects in a semipredictable environment for the same group of observers across four different tasks, two perceptual (color and orientation judgments) and two oculomotor (tracking moving targets and the pupil light reflex). By leveraging individual differences, we searched for links in the magnitude of serial dependence effects across the different tasks. On the group level, we observed significant attractive serial dependence effects for all tasks, except the pupil response. The rare absence of a serial dependence effect for the reflex-like pupil light response suggests that sequential effects require cortical processing or even higher-level cognition. For the tasks with significant serial dependence effects, there was substantial and reliable variance in the magnitude of the sequential effects. We observed a significant relationship in the strength of serial dependence for the two perceptual tasks, but no relation between the perceptual tasks and oculomotor tracking. This emphasizes differences in processing between perception and oculomotor control. The lack of a correlation across all tasks indicates that it is unlikely that the relation between the individual differences in the magnitude of serial dependence is driven by more general mechanisms related to for example working memory. It suggests that there are other shared perceptual or decisional mechanisms for serial dependence effects across different low-level perceptual tasks.