Kaneoke Y, Urakawa T, Hirai M, Kakigi R, Murakami I
Department of Integrative Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Myodaiji-cho, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan.
Neuroscience. 2009 Mar 3;159(1):150-60. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2008.12.014. Epub 2008 Dec 16.
Although it has been shown that an alternative dominant percept induced by an ambiguous visual scene has neural correlates in various cortical areas, it is not known how such a dominant percept is maintained until it switches to another. We measured the primary visual response to the two-frame bistable apparent motion stimulus (stroboscopic alternative motion) when observers continuously perceived one motion and compared this with the response for another motion using magnetoencephalography. We observed a response component at around 160 ms after the frame change, the amplitude of which depended on the perceived motion. In contrast, brain responses to less ambiguous and physically unambiguous motions in both the horizontal and vertical directions did not evoke such a component. The differential response evoked by the bistable apparent motion is therefore distinct from directionally-selective visual responses. The results indicate the existence of neural activity related to establish and maintain one dominant percept, the magnitude of which is related to the ambiguity of the stimulus. This is in the line with the currently proposed idea that dominant percept is established in the distributed cortical areas including the early visual areas. Further, the existence of the neural activity induced only by the ambiguous image suggests that the competitive neural activities for the two possible percepts exist even when one dominant image is continuously perceived.
尽管已有研究表明,由模糊视觉场景诱导的另一种主导知觉在各个皮层区域具有神经关联,但尚不清楚这种主导知觉在切换到另一种知觉之前是如何维持的。当观察者持续感知一种运动时,我们使用脑磁图测量了对两帧双稳态表观运动刺激(频闪交替运动)的初级视觉反应,并将其与对另一种运动的反应进行了比较。我们在帧变化后约160毫秒观察到一个反应成分,其幅度取决于感知到的运动。相比之下,大脑对水平和垂直方向上不太模糊和物理上明确的运动的反应并未引发这样的成分。因此,双稳态表观运动诱发的差异反应与方向选择性视觉反应不同。结果表明存在与建立和维持一种主导知觉相关的神经活动,其强度与刺激的模糊性有关。这与目前提出的观点一致,即主导知觉是在包括早期视觉区域在内的分布式皮层区域中建立的。此外,仅由模糊图像诱发的神经活动的存在表明,即使持续感知一种主导图像,两种可能知觉的竞争性神经活动也存在。