Serial dependence alters perceived object appearance

Abstract

The visual world as it presents itself to our eyes is constantly changing, in contrast with human perceptual experience, which is smooth and stable. One of the posited psychological mechanisms that may contribute to this constructed perceptual stability is the continuity field, a spatiotemporal integration window. The current study examined whether temporal integration, as quantified by serial dependence (SD) between perceived attributes of successive visual stimuli, influenced the subjective appearance of objects or decisional stages in response determination. To do so, an oddball task required participants to directly compare visual objects and decorrelated responses (present/absent) from the visual attribute on which SD may occur (orientation). Results showed that SD could cause a single visual object to appear different from surrounding distractors, leading to modulations of performance. These results argue in favor of a perceptual level of SD, and against decisional accounts.