Beckman Institute, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA.
Cognition. 2010 Apr;115(1):186-91. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.11.010. Epub 2009 Dec 24.
At near-threshold levels of stimulation, identical stimulus parameters can result in very different phenomenal experiences. Can we manipulate which stimuli reach consciousness? Here we show that consciousness of otherwise masked stimuli can be experimentally induced by sensory entrainment. We preceded a backward-masked stimulus with a series of rapid visual events presented at 12 Hz for 800 ms. Peaks in visual sensitivity (d') were observed when the target appeared at the time that the next entraining stimuli would have occurred. Observers' sensitivity for identical masked near-threshold stimuli increased by factors as large as 55%, but only at this precise moment in time. These data thus reveal that awareness of near-threshold stimuli can be manipulated by entrainment to rhythmic events, supporting the functional role of induced oscillations in underlying cortical excitability, and suggest a plausible mechanism of temporal attention.
在接近刺激阈限的水平下，相同的刺激参数可能会导致非常不同的感觉体验。我们能否操纵哪些刺激进入意识？在这里，我们展示了通过感觉同步可以在实验中诱导出原本被掩蔽的刺激的意识。我们用一系列在 12Hz 下呈现 800ms 的快速视觉事件来预先呈现一个向后掩蔽的刺激。当目标出现在下一个同步刺激即将出现的时间时，观察到视觉灵敏度（d'）的峰值。观察者对相同的掩蔽近阈刺激的灵敏度增加了高达 55%的倍数，但仅在这个精确的时间点。因此，这些数据表明，通过对节奏事件的同步可以操纵近阈刺激的意识，这支持了诱导振荡在皮质兴奋性中的功能作用，并提出了一种时间注意的合理机制。
