Stimulus Reliability in Serial Dependence: Facing Noise

Despite exposure to various sources of visual noise, we experience the surrounding world as very stable. Evidence suggests that this sense of stability emerges as the visual system uses prior information to interpret current sensory evidence through a process known as serial dependence. Although manifesting as a misperception, recent evidence suggest that this process is highly adaptive and driven by the aim to enhance stimulus reliability for visual stimuli in noisy settings. This suggestion is thus far supported for low-level stimuli and orientation reproduction, and it is not clear whether it extends to high-level stimuli like faces. The results from the present study revealed that serial dependence in an identity reproduction task changed as a function of stimulus reliability. Weaker serial dependence was demonstrated when degraded faces were followed by undegraded faces, and stronger serial dependence when undegraded faces were followed by degraded faces. Additionally, attractive serial dependence was revealed when both preceding and current target faces were degraded. These results show that serial dependence in high-level face perception is also affected by stimulus reliability.