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Comment
. 2022 Sep 7;20(9):e3001788.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001788. eCollection 2022 Sep.

Searching for serial dependencies in the brain

Affiliations
Comment

Searching for serial dependencies in the brain

David Whitney et al. PLoS Biol. .

Abstract

Identifying the neural correlates of visual serial dependence has lagged behind the behavioral understanding. A new study in PLOS Biology provides a model of interpreting the complex relationship between physiology and behavior in studies of serial dependence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Examples of serial dependency effects, in which perceptions, decisions, and memories are biased, pulled toward the past.
(A) Serial dependence in orientation. (B) Serial dependence in numerosity. (C) Serial dependence in face recognition. This is not an exhaustive list; serial dependence occurs for many other stimuli, including at feature and object-selective levels of visual processing, and in other modalities such as audition. (D) Continuity fields: regions of space and time within which the brain treats sequential features and objects as being more similar than they are, for the purpose of temporally smoothing representations. Top panel, temporal tuning. Bottom panel, spatial tuning. Yellow regions show relatively stronger serial dependency. For a demonstration of serial dependence in perception, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqVwvdOzuk from [5].

Comment on

References

    1. Fischer J, Whitney D. Serial dependence in visual perception. Nat Neurosci. 2014;17(5):738–43. doi: 10.1038/nn.3689 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cicchini GM, Anobile G, Burr DC. Compressive mapping of number to space reflects dynamic encoding mechanisms, not static logarithmic transform. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014;111(21):7867–72. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1402785111 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sheehan T, Serences J. Attractive serial dependence overcomes repulsive neuronal adaptation. PLoS Biol. 2022; 20(9):e3001711. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001711 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Murai Y, Whitney D. Serial dependence revealed in history-dependent perceptual templates. Curr Biol. 2021;31(14):3185–91.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.006 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Manassi M, Whitney D. Illusion of visual stability through active perceptual serial dependence. Sci Adv. 2022;8(2):eabk2480. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abk2480 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

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