Bartels Andreas, Logothetis Nikos K
Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
J Vis. 2010 Oct 1;10(12):3. doi: 10.1167/10.12.3.
In binocular rivalry, the visual percept alternates stochastically between two dichoptically presented stimuli. It is established that both processes related to the eye of origin and binocular, stimulus-related processes account for these fluctuations in conscious perception. Here we studied how their relative contributions vary over time. We applied brief disruptions to rivalry displays, concurrent with an optional eye swap, at varying time intervals after one stimulus became visible (dominant). We found that early in a dominance phase the dominant eye determined the percept by stabilizing its own contribution (regardless of the stimulus), with an additional yet weaker stabilizing contribution of the stimulus (regardless of the eye). Their stabilizing contributions declined in parallel with time so that late in a dominance phase the stimulus (and in some cases also the eye-based) contribution turned negative, favoring a perceptual (or ocular) switch. Our findings show that depending on the time, first processes related to the eye of origin and then those related to the stimulus can have a greater net influence on the stability of the conscious percept. Their co-varying change may be due to feedback from image- to eye-of-origin representations.
在双眼竞争中，视觉感知在两个通过双眼分别呈现的刺激之间随机交替。已经确定，与起始眼相关的过程以及与双眼刺激相关的过程都导致了这些意识感知中的波动。在此，我们研究了它们的相对贡献如何随时间变化。在一个刺激变得可见（占主导）后的不同时间间隔，我们对竞争显示施加短暂干扰，并同时进行可选的眼动切换。我们发现，在主导阶段早期，占主导的眼睛通过稳定自身的贡献（与刺激无关）来决定感知，刺激也有额外但较弱的稳定贡献（与眼睛无关）。它们的稳定贡献随时间平行下降，以至于在主导阶段后期，刺激（在某些情况下还有基于眼睛的）贡献变为负，有利于感知（或眼动）切换。我们的研究结果表明，根据时间不同，首先是与起始眼相关的过程，然后是与刺激相关的过程，可能对意识感知的稳定性产生更大的净影响。它们的共同变化可能是由于从图像到起始眼表征的反馈。
