Characterising Serial Dependence as an Attraction to Prior Response

Serial dependence refers to a common misperception which can occur between subsequently observed stimuli. Observers misreport the current stimulus as being more similar to the previous stimulus than it objectively is. It has been proposed that this bias may reflect an attraction of current percept to prior percept (Fischer & Whitney, 2014). Alternatively, serial dependence has also been proposed to be the result of an assimilative effect between observer decisions (Fritsche et al., 2017; Pascucci et al., 2019). Lying within this debate is the issue of how we quantify serial dependence. Should this be as a bias induced by prior stimuli or by prior responses? We investigated this by manipulating the orientation of current stimuli such that they fell between previous stimulus and previous response. We observed an attraction to previous response and a concomitant repulsion from previous stimulus. This suggests that the attractive effect of serial dependence in orientation judgements is best quantified in relation to prior response.

序列依赖（Serial dependence）是指连续观察的刺激之间常见的一种感知偏差。观察者会错误地报告当前刺激与前一个刺激的相似性高于其客观实际。有研究提出，这种偏差可能反映了当前感知对先前感知的吸引作用（Fischer & Whitney, 2014）。另一种观点认为，序列依赖也可能是观察者决策之间同化效应的结果（Fritsche等，2017；Pascucci等，2019）。这场争论的核心在于如何量化序列依赖：这种量化应基于先前刺激引发的偏差，还是先前反应引发的偏差？我们通过操纵当前刺激的方向（使其介于先前刺激与先前反应之间）来探究这一问题。结果发现，当前刺激表现出对先前反应的吸引，同时伴随对先前刺激的排斥。这表明，方向判断中序列依赖的吸引效应，最优量化方式应关联先前反应。