Frontiers in Psychology (Jun 2021)
Color Modulates Feature Integration
Abstract
Bayesian models of object recognition propose the resolution of ambiguity through probabilistic integration of prior experience with available sensory information. Color, even when task-irrelevant, has been shown to modulate high-level cognitive control tasks. However, it remains unclear how color modulations affect lower-level perceptual processing. We investigated whether color affects feature integration using the flash-jump illusion. This illusion occurs when an apparent motion stimulus, a rectangular bar appearing at different locations along a motion trajectory, changes color at a single position. Observers misperceive this color change as occurring farther along the trajectory of motion. This mislocalization error is proposed to be produced by a Bayesian perceptual framework dependent on responses in area V4. Our results demonstrated that the color of the flash modulated the magnitude of the flash-jump illusion such that participants reported less of a shift, i.e., a more veridical flash location, for both red and blue flashes, as compared to green and yellow. Our findings extend color-dependent modulation effects found in higher-order executive functions into lower-level Bayesian perceptual processes. Our results also support the theory that feature integration is a Bayesian process. In this framework, color modulations play an inherent and automatic role as different colors have different weights in Bayesian perceptual processing.
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