Dynamics of a Mathematical Model for Four-State Binocular Rivalry

Abstract

Binocular rivalry is a visual perception phenomenon in which the percept alternates between several different images while the stimuli
remain unchanged. This phenomenon has long been utilized to study visual awareness and its underlying cortical mechanisms. Many works
on perceptual rivalry focus on bistable perceptual rivalry while only a minuscule amount of work considers rivalry between more than two
percepts (multistable perceptual rivalry). However, multistable perceptual rivalry offers more tools for studying our brain than the bistable
case. Here we study a model that accounts for quadra-state binocular rivalry observed in several sets of experiments. We find that both slow
adaptation and noise are needed to produce stochastic switching. We have also provided a different view on the source of the four percepts
from dynamical system aspect.