Fusion of competing features is not serial

• Published in: Vision research (Oxford) Vol. 43; no. 18; pp. 1951 - 1960
• Main Authors: Herzog, Michael H, Parish, Landi, Koch, Christof, Fahle, Manfred
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2003; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Perception; Perceptual Masking; Photic Stimulation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Vision; Visual Acuity - physiology; Visual Perception - physiology; Vernier acuity; Human; Information integration; Vision; Perception; Cognition; Masking
• ISSN: 0042-6989; 1878-5646
• DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(03)00278-5

How features of an object are bound into a unique percept is one of the puzzling problems in the cognitive and neuro-sciences. In order to investigate the spatio-temporal mechanisms of feature binding, we serially present two verniers with opposite offset directions for very short durations. Only one vernier is perceived with its offset dominated by the vernier presented second. This dominance reverses if the two verniers are followed by masking gratings, i.e. the first presented vernier dominates performance. Therefore, feature fusion can neither be explained completely by spatially local mechanisms nor by the temporal order of appearance of elements.