{"id":230,"date":"2017-05-16T12:25:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T10:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/?p=230"},"modified":"2017-05-22T16:54:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T14:54:19","slug":"layman-paper-summary-humans-treat-unreliable-filled-in-percepts-as-more-real-than-veridical-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/layman-paper-summary-humans-treat-unreliable-filled-in-percepts-as-more-real-than-veridical-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Layman Paper Summary: Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">     .wp-caption.aligncenter{margin: 0 auto !important;} <\/style>\n<p>We recently published an article (free to read): <a href=\"https:\/\/elifesciences.org\/content\/6\/e21761\">&#8220;Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones&#8221;<\/a>. Inspired by <a href=\"https:\/\/selimonat.blogspot.de\/2017\/04\/adaptive-changes-in-viewing-behavior-of.html\">Selim Onat<\/a> and many others, I try to to explain the main findings in plain language. First let me give you some background:<\/p>\n<p>To make sense of the world around us, we must combine information from multiple sources while taking into account how reliable they are. When crossing the street, for example, we usually rely more on input from our eyes than our ears. However we can reassess our reliability estimate: on a foggy day with poor visibility, we might prioritize listening for traffic instead.<\/p>\n<h2>The human blind spots<\/h2>\n<p>But how do we assess the reliability of information generated within the brain itself? We are able to see because the brain constructs an image based on the patterns of activity of light-sensitive proteins in a part of the eye called the retina. However, there is a point on the retina where the presence of the optic nerve leaves no space for light-sensitive receptors. This means there is a corresponding point in our visual field where the brain receives no visual input from the outside world. To prevent us from perceiving this gap, known as the visual blind spot, the brain fills in the blank space based on the contents of the surrounding areas. While this is usually accurate enough, it means that our perception in the blind spot is objectively unreliable.<br \/>\nYou can try it out by using this simple test (click the image to enlarge)<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_231\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/try_it_yourself.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-231\" class=\"wp-image-231\" src=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/try_it_yourself-300x263.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/try_it_yourself-300x263.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/try_it_yourself-768x674.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/try_it_yourself-1024x898.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-231\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keep your eyes fixed on the cross in (a). Close the <strong> left <\/strong> eye. Depending on the size &amp; resolution of your screen, move your head slowly closer to (or sometimes further away from) the screen while looking at the cross. The dot in (a) should vanish. You can then try the same with the stimulus we used in this study (b). The small inset should vanish and you should perceive a continuous stimulus.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>What we wanted to find out<\/h2>\n<p>To find out whether we are aware of the unreliable nature of stimuli in the blind spot\u00a0we presented volunteers with two striped stimuli, one on each side of the screen. The center of some of the stimuli were covered by a patch that broke up the stripes. The volunteers\u2019 task was to select the stimulus with uninterrupted stripes. The key to the experiment is that if the central patch appears in the blind spot, the brain will fill in the stripes so that they appear to be continuous. This means that the volunteers will have to choose between two stimuli that both appear to have continuous stripes.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_232\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_subject.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-232\" class=\"wp-image-232 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_subject-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_subject-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_subject-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_subject-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_subject.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-232\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A study participant chooses between two striped visual images, one &#8216;real&#8217; and one inset in the blind spot, displayed using shutter glasses (CC-BY 4.0 Ricardo Gameiro)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_233\" style=\"width: 214px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_blindspot_en_v1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"wp-image-233 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_blindspot_en_v1-204x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"204\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_blindspot_en_v1-204x300.png 204w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_blindspot_en_v1-768x1128.png 768w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_blindspot_en_v1-697x1024.png 697w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/ehinger_2017_blindspot_en_v1.png 1042w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 204px) 100vw, 204px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The experimental setup. Only the case where the left stimulus is in the blind spot is shown here.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>What we thought we would find<\/h2>\n<p>If subjects have no awareness of their blind spot, we might expect them to simply guess. Alternatively, if they are subconsciously aware that the stimulus in the blind spot is unreliable, they should choose the other one.<\/p>\n<h2>In reality, exactly the opposite happened:<\/h2>\n<p>The volunteers chose the blind spot stimulus more often than not. This suggests that information generated by the brain itself is sometimes treated as more reliable than sensory information from the outside world. Future experiments should examine whether the tendency to favor information generated within the brain over external sensory inputs is unique to the visual blind spot, or whether it also occurs elsewhere.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_234\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/results_exp1_easy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234\" class=\"wp-image-234 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/results_exp1_easy-1024x551.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"551\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/results_exp1_easy-1024x551.png 1024w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/results_exp1_easy-300x161.png 300w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/results_exp1_easy-768x413.png 768w, https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/upload\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/results_exp1_easy.png 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-234\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The results of the first experiment. Four subsequent experiments confirmed this finding.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Sources<\/h3>\n<p>All images are released under CC-BY 4.0.<\/p>\n<p>Cite as: Ehinger et al. \u00a0&#8220;Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones&#8221;, eLife, doi:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.7554\/eLife.21761\">10.7554\/eLife.21761<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We recently published an article (free to read): &#8220;Humans treat unreliable filled-in percepts as more real than veridical ones&#8221;. Inspired by Selim Onat and many others, I try to to explain the main findings in plain language. First let me give you some background: To make sense of the world around us, we must combine information from multiple sources while taking into account how reliable they are. When crossing the street, for example, we usually rely more on input from our eyes than our ears. However we can reassess our reliability estimate: on a foggy day with poor visibility, we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benediktehinger.de\/blog\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}