Ihre Suche

Sprache

Ergebnisse 2 Einträge

  • During observation of an ambiguous Necker cube, our percept changes spontaneously although the external stimulus does not. An EEG paradigm allowing time-resolved EEG measurement during endogenous perceptual reversals recently revealed a chain of ERP correlates beginning with an early occipital positivity at around 130 ms (Reversal Positivity, "RP"). In order to better understand the functional role of this RP, we investigated its relation to the P100, which is spatiotemporally close, typically occurring 100 ms after onset of a visual stimulus at occipital electrodes. We compared the relation of the ERP amplitudes to varying sizes of ambiguous Necker cubes. The main results are: (1) The P100 amplitude increases monotonically with stimulus size but is independent of the participants' percept. (2) The RP, in contrast, is percept-related and largely unaffected by stimulus size. (3) A similar pattern to RP was found for reaction times: They depend on the percept but not on stimulus size. We speculate that the P100 reflects processing of elementary visual features, while the RP is related to a processing conflict during 3D interpretation that precedes a reversal. The present results indicate that low-level visual processing (related to stimulus size) and (relative) high-level processing (related to perceptual reversal) occur in close spatial and temporal vicinity.

  • The observation of an ambiguous figure leads to spontaneous perceptual reversals while the observed picture stays unchanged. Some ERP studies on ambiguous figures report a P300-like component correlated with perceptual reversals supporting a top-down explanation, while other studies found early visual ERP components supporting a bottom-up explanation. Based on an experimental paradigm that permits a high temporal resolution of the endogenous reversal event, we compared endogenous Necker-cube reversals with exogenously-induced reversals of unambiguous cube variants. For both reversal types, we found a chain of ERP components with the following characteristics: (1) An early occipital ERP component (130 ms) is restricted to endogenous reversals. (2) All subsequent components also appear with exogenously-induced reversals, however 40-90 ms earlier than their endogenous counterparts. (3) The latency difference between reversal types is also reflected in the timing of manual reactions, which occur 100-130 ms after P300-like components. The results suggest that the P300-like component is the same as found in other ERP studies on ambiguous figures. This component does not reflect the reversal per se, but rather its cognitive analysis, 300 ms after a change of the representation in early visual areas. The presented ERP chains integrate the different ERP results and allow to pinpoint the steps where top-down mechanisms begin to exert their influence.

Last update from database: 04.06.25, 15:35 (UTC)