Colour misbinding during motion rivalry

When two dissimilar colours are displayed to the two eyes at overlapping retinal locations, binocular rivalry typically results: a fluctuating struggle for perceptual dominance of each eye’s stimulus. We found instead that isoluminant counter-rotating patterns consisting of coloured and achromatic portions can promote an illusory colour “misbinding”, where the colours from both eyes were perceived within a single rotating pattern. The achromatic portion of one rotating pattern thus appeared to take on the colour of the other, oppositely-rotating pattern. The results suggest that the neural mechanisms of colour binding can operate even while representations of the same patterns’ motions are undergoing rivalry, and support the idea that rivalry can occur in isolation within the motion system.