Chen Lihong, Jiang Yi
State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Neurosci Bull. 2024 Dec;40(12):1875-1885. doi: 10.1007/s12264-024-01257-4. Epub 2024 Jul 29.
Previous studies have proposed two cognitive mechanisms responsible for the Ebbinghaus illusion effect, i.e., contour interaction and size contrast. However, the neural underpinnings of these two mechanisms are largely unexplored. The present study introduced binocular depth to the Ebbinghaus illusion configuration and made the central target appear either in front of or behind the surrounding inducers in order to disturb size contrast instead of contour interaction. The results showed that the illusion effect, though persisted, was significantly reduced under the binocular depth conditions. Notably, the target with a larger perceived size reduced early alpha-band power (8-13 Hz, 0-100 ms after stimulus onset) at centroparietal sites irrespective of the relative depth of the target and the inducers, with the parietal alpha power negatively correlated with the illusion effect. Moreover, the target with a larger perceived size increased the occipito-parietal beta-band power (14-25 Hz, 200-300 ms after stimulus onset) under the no-depth condition, and the beta power was positively correlated with the illusion effect when the depth conditions were subtracted from the no-depth condition. The findings provided neurophysiological evidence in favor of the two cognitive mechanisms of the Ebbinghaus illusion by revealing that early alpha power is associated with low-level contour interaction and late beta power is linked to high-level size contrast, supporting the claim that neural oscillations at distinct frequency bands dynamically support different aspects of visual processing.
先前的研究提出了两种导致艾宾浩斯错觉效应的认知机制，即轮廓交互作用和大小对比。然而，这两种机制的神经基础在很大程度上尚未得到探索。本研究将双眼深度引入艾宾浩斯错觉配置中，使中央目标出现在周围诱导物的前方或后方，以干扰大小对比而非轮廓交互作用。结果表明，尽管错觉效应仍然存在，但在双眼深度条件下显著降低。值得注意的是，无论目标与诱导物的相对深度如何，具有较大感知大小的目标在中央顶叶部位降低了早期阿尔法波段功率（8 - 13赫兹，刺激开始后0 - 100毫秒），顶叶阿尔法功率与错觉效应呈负相关。此外，在无深度条件下，具有较大感知大小的目标增加了枕顶叶贝塔波段功率（14 - 25赫兹，刺激开始后200 - 300毫秒），当从无深度条件中减去深度条件时，贝塔功率与错觉效应呈正相关。这些发现通过揭示早期阿尔法功率与低水平轮廓交互作用相关，晚期贝塔功率与高水平大小对比相关，为艾宾浩斯错觉的两种认知机制提供了神经生理学证据，支持了不同频段的神经振荡动态支持视觉处理不同方面的观点。
