Adaptation to transients disrupts spatial coherence in binocular rivalry

When one eye is presented with an image that is distinct from the image presented to the other eye, the eyes start to rival and suppress each other’s image. Binocular rivalry leads to perceptual alternations between the images of each eye, during which only one of the images is perceived at a time. However, when the eyes exert weak and shallow suppression, participants tend to perceive both images intermixed more often. A recent study proposed that the precedence of mixed percepts positively correlates with the degree of adaptation to conflict between the eyes. However, this study neglected the role of visual transients, which covaried with the degree of conflict in the stimulus design. Here we report that not the conflict between the eyes but prolonged and repeated observations of strong visual transients cause participants to report more mixed percepts. We conclude that visual transients, such as sudden changes in contrast, draw attention, strengthen both eyes’ image representations, and facilitate the adaptation to interocular suppression, which consequentially disrupts the spatial coherence in binocular rivalry. This finding is relevant to virtual- and augmented reality for which it is crucial to design stereoscopic environments in which binocular rivalry is limited.