Motion-induced blindness shows spatial anisotropies in conscious perception

Abstract

Polar angle asymmetries (PAAs), the differences in perceptual experiences and performance across different regions of the visual field are present in various paradigms and tasks of visual perception. Currently, research in this area is sparse, particularly regarding the influence of PAAs during perceptual illusions, highlighting a gap in visual cognition studies. We aim to fill this gap by measuring PAAs across the visual field during an illusion applied to test conscious vision widely. Motion-induced blindness (MIB) is an illusion when a peripheral target disappears from consciousness as the result of a continuously moving background pattern. During MIB we separately measured the average disappearance time of peripheral targets in eight equidistant visual field positions. Our results indicate a significant variation in MIB disappearance times and frequencies as a function of target location. Specifically, we found shorter and fewer disappearances along the cardinal compared to oblique directions, and along the horizontal compared to the vertical meridian. Our results suggest specific consistencies between visual field asymmetries and conscious visual perception.

Keywords: Eye tracking; HVA; MIB; Motion-induced blindness; Polar angle asymmetry; Visual field anisotropy.

Fig. 1

Mean total times (a) and frequencies (b) of the MIB illusion for each position separately (+-SE). The polar plots show significant differences in disappearance times and frequencies across the visual field positions. N-north, NE-northeast, E-east, SE-southeast, S-south, SW-southwest, W-west, NW-northwest.

Fig. 2

Mean normalized times (+-SE) of the MIB illusion for positions grouped across the meridians (a), the horizontal meridian vs. the UVH and LVH (b), the cardinal and oblique axes (c), and frequencies (+-SE) in the same order (d, e, f). For definitions of the groups see Table 2.

Fig. 3

Illustration of the target stimulus and the MIB inducer pattern. The eight potential locations of the target stimulus are illustrated. Only one of these positions was presented at a time, randomly, per trial. The MIB inducer pattern of crosses rotated randomly in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. For abbreviations see Fig. 1. For details see Apparatus section.

Fig. 4

Storyboard of the experiment design, describing the task for the participants. Each screen was presented until a button was pressed at the beginning of each block of the experiment.