Julia Haas on Revisiting Binocular Rivalry

The Brains blog is excited about the next Neural Mechanisms webinar this Friday. It is free. Find information about how and when to join the webinar here: https://www.neuralmechanisms.org/blog/webinar-julia-haas-8-february-2019 (and below).

Revisiting Binocular Rivalry

Julia Haas (Australian National University)

February 8, 2019 Webinar
h 8-10 – Greenwhich Mean Time 
(Convert to your local time here)

Abstract. Hohwy et al.’s (2008) ‘epistemological’ explanation of binocular rivalry is taken as a classic illustration of predictive coding’s ubiquity and explanatory power. I revisit the account and show that it cannot explain a core feature of binocular rivalry, namely, perceptual dominance in rewarded conditions. A more recent version of Bayesian model averaging, known as Variational Bayes, can account for the role of reward in rivalry by recasting it as a form of optimism bias. However, I argue that if we accept this modified account, we must revise our understanding of perception as a neutral, informational or ‘theoretical’ process in the mind. 

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