Sterzer Philipp, Haynes John-Dylan, Rees Geraint
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, United Kingdom.
J Vis. 2008 Nov 21;8(15):10.1-12. doi: 10.1167/8.15.10.
When incompatible images are presented to the two eyes, one image can dominate awareness while the other is suppressed and invisible. We used high-resolution functional neuroimaging in humans to investigate the neural representation of such suppressed stimuli. Overall responses of high-level ventral visual areas to two different types of invisible object stimuli (faces and houses) were very weak and did not differ in amplitude. Despite this, fine-grained spatial activity patterns within these areas allowed us to predict significantly better than chance whether an observer was presented with face or house stimuli not only when these stimuli were visible but also when they were suppressed and entirely invisible. These findings demonstrate the presence of category-specific information in high-level visual areas during profound interocular suppression of object stimuli that can only be retrieved when the fine-scale pattern of activity within these areas is taken into account.
当不相容的图像呈现给双眼时，一个图像可以主导意识，而另一个则被抑制且不可见。我们利用高分辨率功能神经成像技术对人类进行研究，以探究此类被抑制刺激的神经表征。高级腹侧视觉区域对两种不同类型的不可见物体刺激（面部和房屋）的总体反应非常微弱，且幅度上没有差异。尽管如此，这些区域内的精细空间活动模式使我们不仅能够在这些刺激可见时，而且在它们被抑制且完全不可见时，比随机猜测更准确地预测观察者看到的是面部刺激还是房屋刺激。这些发现表明，在对物体刺激进行深度双眼间抑制期间，高级视觉区域中存在类别特异性信息，只有当考虑这些区域内活动的精细模式时才能提取这些信息。
