Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones
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Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones. / Ehinger, Benedikt V; Häusser, Katja; Ossandón, José P; König, Peter.
In: ELIFE, Vol. 6, 16.05.2017, p. Art. e21761 .Research output: SCORING: Contribution to journal › SCORING: Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones
AU - Ehinger, Benedikt V
AU - Häusser, Katja
AU - Ossandón, José P
AU - König, Peter
PY - 2017/5/16
Y1 - 2017/5/16
N2 - Humans often evaluate sensory signals according to their reliability for optimal decision-making. However, how do we evaluate percepts generated in the absence of direct input that are, therefore, completely unreliable? Here, we utilize the phenomenon of filling-in occurring at the physiological blind-spots to compare partially inferred and veridical percepts. Subjects chose between stimuli that elicit filling-in, and perceptually equivalent ones presented outside the blind-spots, looking for a Gabor stimulus without a small orthogonal inset. In ambiguous conditions, when the stimuli were physically identical and the inset was absent in both, subjects behaved opposite to optimal, preferring the blind-spot stimulus as the better example of a collinear stimulus, even though no relevant veridical information was available. Thus, a percept that is partially inferred is paradoxically considered more reliable than a percept based on external input. In other words: Humans treat filled-in inferred percepts as more real than veridical ones.
AB - Humans often evaluate sensory signals according to their reliability for optimal decision-making. However, how do we evaluate percepts generated in the absence of direct input that are, therefore, completely unreliable? Here, we utilize the phenomenon of filling-in occurring at the physiological blind-spots to compare partially inferred and veridical percepts. Subjects chose between stimuli that elicit filling-in, and perceptually equivalent ones presented outside the blind-spots, looking for a Gabor stimulus without a small orthogonal inset. In ambiguous conditions, when the stimuli were physically identical and the inset was absent in both, subjects behaved opposite to optimal, preferring the blind-spot stimulus as the better example of a collinear stimulus, even though no relevant veridical information was available. Thus, a percept that is partially inferred is paradoxically considered more reliable than a percept based on external input. In other words: Humans treat filled-in inferred percepts as more real than veridical ones.
KW - Journal Article
U2 - 10.7554/eLife.21761
DO - 10.7554/eLife.21761
M3 - SCORING: Journal article
C2 - 28506359
VL - 6
SP - Art. e21761
JO - ELIFE
JF - ELIFE
SN - 2050-084X
ER -