Frequency-specific neural signatures of perceptual content and perceptual stability
- New York University, United States
Abstract
In the natural environment, we often form stable perceptual experiences from ambiguous and fleeting sensory inputs. Which neural activity underlies the content of perception and which neural activity supports perceptual stability remains an open question. We used a bistable perception paradigm involving ambiguous images to behaviorally dissociate perceptual content from perceptual stability, and magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure whole-brain neural dynamics in humans. Combining multivariate decoding and neural state-space analyses, we found frequency band-specific neural signatures that underlie the content of perception and promote perceptual stability, respectively. Across different types of images, non-oscillatory neural activity in the slow cortical potential (SCP, <5 Hz) range supported the content of perception. Perceptual stability was additionally influenced by the amplitude of alpha and beta oscillations. In addition, neural activity underlying perceptual memory, which supports perceptual stability when sensory input is temporally removed from view, also encodes elapsed time. Together, these results reveal distinct neural mechanisms that support the content vs. stability of visual perception.
Data availability
The dataset generated by this study, including data and code to reproduce all the figures, are shared through figshare: https://figshare.com/s/c328299bea96686c2eec
Article and author information
Author details
Matthew W Flounders
Funding
National Science Foundation (BCS-1753218)
- Biyu J He
Irma T. Hirschl Trust
- Biyu J He
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: This experiment was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (under protocol #14 N-0002). All subjects provided written informed consent for the research use and eventual publication of their data.
Copyright
© 2022, Hardstone et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Frequency-specific neural signatures of perceptual content and perceptual stability
eLife 11:e78108.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78108
