Motion dominance in binocular rivalry depends on extraretinal motions.

Abstract

In binocular rivalry, moving stimulus is dominant over stationary stimulus. This is called motion dominance. The motion here is usually a motion defined on the retina (retinal motion). However, motion can be defined in several different coordinates. It can be defined with respect to objects in the background (object-based motion) or to observers' head or body (spatiotopic motion), as well as to the retinal coordinate. In this study, we examined the role of motions defined by these three coordinates. A dichoptic pair of gratings was presented to create a binocular rivalry, one of which was moving and the other stationary. A fixation point and a reference background were either moving with the grating or stationary, depending on the condition. Different combinations of the three types of motions were created by having the observer track the fixation point or the background when they are moving. It was found that the retinal motion does not necessarily yield motion dominance, and that the motion dominance is determined by the combination of motions defined by different coordinate systems.