How the known reference weakens the visual oblique effect: a Bayesian account of cognitive improvement by cue influence

This paper investigates the influence of a known cue on the oblique effect in orientation identification and explains how subjects integrate cue information to identify target orientations. We design the psychophysical task in which subjects estimate target orientations in the presence of a known oriented reference line. For comparison the control experiments without the reference are conducted. Under Bayesian inference framework, a cue integration model is proposed to explain the perceptual improvement in the presence of the reference. The maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters of our model are obtained. In the presence of the reference, the variability and biases of identification are significantly reduced and the oblique effect of orientation identification is obviously weakened. Moreover, the identification of orientation in the vicinity of the reference line is consistently biased away from the reference line (i.e., reference repulsion). Comparing the predictions of the model with the experimental results, the Bayesian Least Squares estimator under the Variable-Precision encoding (BLS_VP) provides a better description of the experimental outcomes and captures the trade-off relationship of bias and precision of identification. Our results provide a useful step toward a better understanding of human visual perception in context of the known cues.