Talk:Motion induced blindness

Reviewer A

I've placed some suggestions and comments into the article (which I must say is very well presented, with skilful use of wiki features). I'll write more here after the other reviewers have had their say.

Reviewer B

This article is very well written, and quite suitable for Scholarpedia readers. Because the authors expressed their preference for an old-fashioned review, I thus state my comments and minor editing suggestions here (without editing directly in the text), in an order of reading this article.

1."The term MIB was coined by Bonneh, Cooperman, and Sagi in 2001 to describe a phenomenon that had been observed in some weak form more than three decades before (Grindley & Townsend, 1967),…"

Because this article will be published in an open-access encyclopedia and is expected to last long (as the reviewer was reminded that “even 50 years from now”), it might be better not to indicate the period of time at a certain point of time. A possible revision might be something like: “The term MIB was coined by Bonneh, Cooperman, and Sagi in 2001 to describe a phenomenon that had been observed in some weak form in the 60s (Grindley & Townsend, 1967),…”

2."…,other such phenomena include binocular rivalry, flash suppression and metacontrast masking."

Since other kinds of masking, e.g., backward masking and four-dot masking, can also be used to investigate awareness, perhaps the authors could use a more general term such as “visual masking” here.

3."Some (e.g., meditating Buddhist monks, as found by Carter et al., 2005, can get the targets to disappear almost indefinitely)."

Some (e.g., meditating Buddhist monks, as found by Carter et al., 2005) can get the targets to disappear almost indefinitely.

4."Another demonstration was created by Prof. Shinsuke Shimojo from Caltech who used a mirror ball (as used in discotheques) to create an optical flow field on the walls of a large dark room (Shimojo, 2008). Watching someone from a distance of a few meters, in this setting, creates an illusion of a floating figure followed by his/her complete disappearance."

Another “Real-person” demonstration was created by Shinsuke Shimojo at Caltech who used a mirror ball (as used in discotheques) to create an optical flow field on the walls of a large dark room (Shimojo, 2008). Watching someone standing at a peripheral position from a distance of a few meters, in this setting, creates an illusion of a floating figure followed by his/her complete disappearance.

5."The strength of MIB is typically measured in terms of the proportion of time in which the disappearing target is invisible, as well as the average disappearance period. Disappearance can reach 40% of the time and more, with a typical average invisibility period of 1-2 sec. The duration and frequency of disappearance are determined by the properties of the target and the surrounding moving mask (Bonneh et al., 2001)."

Here in the first sentence the author explained the strength of MIB as measured by % duration and average disappearance period, but mentioned in the second sentence duration and frequency, and how “frequency” is measured has not been explained. In addition to these two measurements, the initial fading time is also used quite often in studies of MIB.

6."Target luminance and contrast - For a small bright patch on a black background, the brighter the patch is, the more it disappears (Bonneh et al., 2001); use the Target Luminance slider in Figure 1)"

Misplacement or missing of one parathesis.

7."A drifting pattern along one dimension (e.g., from left to right), random incoherent motion, and local surrounding flicker (Kawabe & Miura, 2007) can also induce some disappearance, especially for more peripheral targets However, such masks are less effective."

A period is missing after "peripheral targets".

8."Withdrawing attention from both the target and the mask by a demanding task at fixation slows down the bistable process and prolongs the mean invisible time (Scholvinck & Rees, 2009a). By contrast, directing attention to the target increases the probability and duration of its disappearance (Scholvinck & Rees, 2009a), analogous to an increase in target contrast (Bonneh et al., 2001; Bonneh, Donner, Heeger, & Sagi, In preparation)."

The authors correctly state the results found by Scholvinck and Rees (2009), but the meanings of the two sentences seem conflicting (“By contrast”…).

Bonneh, Donner, Heeger, & Sagi, In preparation: Is this an appropriate citation in an encyclopedia-text?

Scholvinck & Rees, 2009a: This is missing in the reference list

9."It has been suggested that MIB reflects the same filling-in effect (Hsu, Yeh, & Kramer, 2006). However, in MIB the dynamic surround does not fill-in (Figure 1), there is no local "scotoma" in the input (dynamic patterns can nevertheless disappear, Figure 1), and disappearance is not caused by filling-in of specific regions (superimposed contours may disappear in alternation, Bonneh et al., 2001)."

Here the authors seem to express their personal opinion a bit over for an encyclopedia-text. For general readers it is favorable to discuss MIB in a more balanced way and to refrain from drawing conclusions that do not reflect a broad consensus among experts in the field. We have argued against the conjecture that MIB is a unique phenomenon in three different papers (Hsu, Yeh, & Kramer, 2004; 2006, Hsu, Kramer, & Yeh, 2010), and all have withstood peer review. So far, no article has been published that falsifies our conclusions. Moreover, the results by Gorea & Caetta (2009), Kawabe & Miura (2007), and New & Scholl (2008) cast at least some doubt on whether motion is critical to "MIB", and hence, they also cast at least some doubt on the uniqueness of MIB. If the authors prefer not to address our arguments due to the lack of space or other reasons, then refraining from dismissing our view completely in an encyclopedia-text would seem more appropriate.

The authors also stated in the next section the following statement that seems conflicting with the above-mentioned phrase:

"This idea of local low-level suppression is further supported by the evidence for the involvement of adaptation (Gorea & Caetta, 2009), filling-in (Hsu et al., 2006), and motion streak suppression (Wallis & Arnold, 2009) in MIB."

Finally, is there any evidence that in MIB the dynamic surrounds never fills in? New and Scholl (2008, PsychSci) showed in their experiment 2 “filling in during MIB”.