The binding problem and the perception of multiple stimuli
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- A long-standing assertion from the binding problem is that human vision is limited to identifying only a single stimulus at a time. We test the veracity of this claim in a series of experiments and simulations. We focus in particular on illusory conjunctions (ICs), a phenomenon that has provided support for single-object capacity limits. We find that studies on ICs have conflated to distinct phenomena which we term proximal and distal ICs. Proximal ICs occur between neighboring, peripheral stimuli, and we present evidence that they may be driven by shared or similar mechanisms to crowding. Unlike proximal ICs, distal ICs can occur between distant stimuli but seem to require brief stimulus durations and a competing task. We investigate claims that the competing task drives ICs either through mnemonic errors or through the manipulation of spatial attention, as FIT, a single-object capacity theory, would predict. We find support for neither claim. Instead, attention to and encoding of the competing task stimuli appears to cast a 'shadow' over nearby regions such that IC-susceptible stimuli appearing within those regions become more vulnerable to interference even from distant distractors. In neither phenomenon do we find support for a general inability to process multiple objects in parallel. We further tested claims of a single-object capacity limit with neural network simulations trained to identify abstract representations of stimuli. We found that a range of networks could identify two stimuli in parallel with high accuracy. Despite arguments by von der Malsburg (1999), these networks did not require a mechanism for oscillations and used only weighted summation with a sigmoid filter. Using these networks, we were able to simulate errors similar to crowding and proximal ICs as well as deficits in the identification of multiple stimuli after parietal lesions, a key piece of evidence supporting FIT. These empirical and modeling results demonstrate that it is possible to solve the binding problem without limiting perception to a single stimulus at a time.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Henderson, Cynthia Marie |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Psychology. |
| Primary advisor | McClelland, James L |
| Thesis advisor | McClelland, James L |
| Thesis advisor | Wagner, Anthony David |
| Thesis advisor | Wandell, Brian A |
| Advisor | Wagner, Anthony David |
| Advisor | Wandell, Brian A |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Cynthia Marie Henderson. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Psychology. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Cynthia Marie Henderson
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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