Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, 3584 CH, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
J Neurosci. 2010 Jan 13;30(2):760-6. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4171-09.2010.
When faced with inconclusive or conflicting visual input human observers experience one of multiple possible perceptions. One factor that determines perception of such an ambiguous stimulus is how the same stimulus was perceived on previous occasions, a phenomenon called perceptual memory. We examined perceptual memory of an ambiguous motion stimulus while applying transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the motion-sensitive areas of the middle temporal cortex (hMT+). TMS increased the predominance of whichever perceptual interpretation was most commonly reported by a given observer at baseline, with reduced perception of the less favored interpretation. This increased incidence of the preferred percept indicates impaired long-term buildup of perceptual memory traces that normally act against individual percept biases. We observed no effect on short-term memory traces acting from one presentation to the next. Our results indicate that hMT+ is important for the long-term buildup of perceptual memory for ambiguous motion stimuli.
当面对不确定或冲突的视觉输入时,人类观察者会体验到多种可能的感知之一。决定对这种模糊刺激的感知的一个因素是在先前情况下对相同刺激的感知方式,这一现象称为感知记忆。当我们将经颅磁刺激 (TMS) 应用于颞中回 (hMT+) 的运动敏感区域时,我们检查了对模糊运动刺激的感知记忆。TMS 增加了主导性,即在基线时,给定观察者最常报告的感知解释,而较少受青睐的解释则减少。这种首选感知的发生率增加表明,长期的感知记忆痕迹的建立受到了损害,而这些痕迹通常会抵制个体感知偏见。我们没有观察到对下一次呈现的短期记忆痕迹的影响。我们的结果表明,hMT+ 对于模糊运动刺激的长期感知记忆的建立很重要。