scholarly journals Cortical entrainment to hierarchical contextual rhythms recomposes dynamic attending in visual perception

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peijun Yuan ◽  
Ruichen Hu ◽  
Xue Zhang ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
Yi Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Time Dimension ◽  
Information Selection ◽  
Delta Band ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Cortical Entrainment

AbstractTemporal regularity is ubiquitous and essential to guiding attention and coordinating behavior within a dynamic environment. Previous researchers have modeled attention as an internal rhythm that may entrain to first-order regularity from rhythmic events to prioritize information selection at specific time points. Using the attentional blink paradigm, here we show that higher-order regularity based on rhythmic organization of contextual features (pitch, color, or motion) may serve as a temporal frame to recompose the dynamic profile of visual temporal attention. Critically, such attentional reframing effect is well predicted by cortical entrainment to the higher-order contextual structure at the delta band as well as its coupling with the stimulus-driven alpha power. These results suggest that the human brain involuntarily exploits multiscale regularities in rhythmic contexts to recompose dynamic attending in visual perception, and highlight neural entrainment as a central mechanism for optimizing our conscious experience of the world in the time dimension.

scholarly journals Cortical entrainment to hierarchical contextual rhythms recomposes dynamic attending in visual perception

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peijun Yuan ◽  
Ruichen Hu ◽  
Xue Zhang ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
Yi Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Time Dimension ◽  
Information Selection ◽  
Delta Band ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Cortical Entrainment

Temporal regularity is ubiquitous and essential to guiding attention and coordinating behavior within a dynamic environment. Previous researchers have modeled attention as an internal rhythm that may entrain to first-order regularity from rhythmic events to prioritize information selection at specific time points. Using the attentional blink paradigm, here we show that higher-order regularity based on rhythmic organization of contextual features (pitch, color, or motion) may serve as a temporal frame to recompose the dynamic profile of visual temporal attention. Critically, such attentional reframing effect is well predicted by cortical entrainment to the higher-order contextual structure at the delta band as well as its coupling with the stimulus-driven alpha power. These results suggest that the human brain involuntarily exploits multiscale regularities in rhythmic contexts to recompose dynamic attending in visual perception, and highlight neural entrainment as a central mechanism for optimizing our conscious experience of the world in the time dimension.

Social Attribution and Explanation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Hilton
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Situation Models ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Human Visual Perception ◽  
Social Attribution ◽  
Text Understanding ◽  
Causal Selection ◽  
Partial Correction

Attribution processes appear to be an integral part of human visual perception, as low-level inferences of causality and intentionality appear to be automatic and are supported by specific brain systems. However, higher-order attribution processes use information held in memory or made present at the time of judgment. While attribution processes about social objects are sometimes biased, there is scope for partial correction. This chapter reviews work on the generation, communication, and interpretation of complex explanations, with reference to explanation-based models of text understanding that result in situation models of narratives. It distinguishes between causal connection and causal selection, and suggests that a factor will be discounted if it is not perceived to be connected to the event and backgrounded if it is perceived to be causally connected to that event, but is not selected as relevant to an explanation. The final section focuses on how interpersonal explanation processes constrain causal selection.

scholarly journals Passive sensorimotor stimulation triggers long lasting alpha-band fluctuations in visual perception

2018 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 380-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Tomassini ◽  
Alessandro D’Ausilio
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Median Nerve ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Sensorimotor System ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Movement Initiation ◽  
Visual Contrast ◽  
Sensorimotor Processes ◽  
Stimulation Of

Movement planning and execution rely on the anticipation and online control of the incoming sensory input. Evidence suggests that sensorimotor processes may synchronize visual rhythmic activity in preparation of action performance. Indeed, we recently reported periodic fluctuations of visual contrast sensitivity that are time-locked to the onset of an intended movement of the arm. However, the origin of the observed visual modulations has so far remained unclear because of the endogenous (and thus temporally undetermined) activation of the sensorimotor system that is associated with voluntary movement initiation. In this study, we activated the sensorimotor circuitry involved in the hand control in an exogenous and controlled way by means of peripheral stimulation of the median nerve and characterized the spectrotemporal dynamics of the ensuing visual perception. The stimulation of the median nerve triggers robust and long-lasting (∼1 s) alpha-band oscillations in visual perception, whose strength is temporally modulated in a way that is consistent with the changes in alpha power described at the neurophysiological level after sensorimotor stimulation. These findings provide evidence in support of a causal role of the sensorimotor system in modulating oscillatory activity in visual areas with consequences for visual perception. NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study shows that the peripheral activation of the somatomotor hand system triggers long-lasting alpha periodicity in visual perception. This demonstrates that not only the endogenous sensorimotor processes involved in movement preparation but also the passive stimulation of the sensorimotor system can synchronize visual activity. The present work suggests that oscillation-based mechanisms may subserve core (task independent) sensorimotor integration functions.

scholarly journals Cortical entrainment to music and its modulation by expertise

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (45) ◽  
pp. E6233-E6242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith B. Doelling ◽  
David Poeppel
Keyword(s):  
Music Perception ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Cortical Oscillations ◽  
Bidirectional Relationship ◽  
Delta Activity ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
Neural Entrainment ◽  
Cortical Entrainment

Recent studies establish that cortical oscillations track naturalistic speech in a remarkably faithful way. Here, we test whether such neural activity, particularly low-frequency (<8 Hz; delta–theta) oscillations, similarly entrain to music and whether experience modifies such a cortical phenomenon. Music of varying tempi was used to test entrainment at different rates. In three magnetoencephalography experiments, we recorded from nonmusicians, as well as musicians with varying years of experience. Recordings from nonmusicians demonstrate cortical entrainment that tracks musical stimuli over a typical range of tempi, but not at tempi below 1 note per second. Importantly, the observed entrainment correlates with performance on a concurrent pitch-related behavioral task. In contrast, the data from musicians show that entrainment is enhanced by years of musical training, at all presented tempi. This suggests a bidirectional relationship between behavior and cortical entrainment, a phenomenon that has not previously been reported. Additional analyses focus on responses in the beta range (∼15–30 Hz)—often linked to delta activity in the context of temporal predictions. Our findings provide evidence that the role of beta in temporal predictions scales to the complex hierarchical rhythms in natural music and enhances processing of musical content. This study builds on important findings on brainstem plasticity and represents a compelling demonstration that cortical neural entrainment is tightly coupled to both musical training and task performance, further supporting a role for cortical oscillatory activity in music perception and cognition.

Higher‐order thoughts and conscious experience

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-254
Author(s):  
Robert M. Francescotti
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Higher Order

Strengthen the "Non-Visual Perception Experience" in the Design of Public Space

2012 ◽  
Vol 174-177 ◽  
pp. 3083-3086
Author(s):  
Jun Sun
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Space Environment ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Major City ◽  
Essential Function ◽  
The Relationship

Since human beings are living in the dynamic environment which requires multi-perceptional experiences, multiple perceptions prevail in every aspect of people’s life. In this article, the writer is concerned with the problems revealed in the design of public space environment, and the important role non-visual perceptional experience plays in the relationship between human being and environment. In the procession of their design, it is necessary for the designers to pay attention to the users' requirements on the non-visual perceptional experience. Making use of several cases of major city public spaces as example, the writer conducted careful survey into the current situation of the actual practice of non-visual perception experience and validates its essential function.

scholarly journals Topological Analysis of Differential Effects of Ketamine and Propofol Anesthesia on Brain Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Varley ◽  
Vanessa Denny ◽  
Olaf Sporns ◽  
Alice Patania
Keyword(s):  
State Transition ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Topological Analysis ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Topological Data Analysis ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Dimensional Manifold ◽  
Discrete State ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Awake Condition

AbstractResearch into the neural correlates of consciousness has found that the vividness and complexity of conscious experience is related to the structure of brain dynamics, and that alterations to consciousness track changes in temporal evolution of brain states. Despite inducing externally similar states, propofol and ketamine produce different subjective states of consciousness: here we explore the different effects of these two anaesthetics on the structure of dynamical attractors reconstructed from electrophysiological activity recorded from cerebral cortex of two non-human primates. We used two different methods of attractor reconstruction: the first embeds the recordings in a continuous high-dimensional manifold on which we use topological data analysis to infer the presence (or absence) of higher-order dynamics. The second reconstruction, an ordinal partition network embedding, allows us to create a discrete state-transition network approximation of a continuous attractor, which is amenable to information-theoretic analysis and contains rich information about state-transition dynamics. We find that the awake condition generally had the “richest” structure, with the widest repertoire of available states, the presence of pronounced higher-order structures, and the least deterministic dynamics. In contrast, the propofol condition had the most dissimilar dynamics to normal consciousness, transitioning to a more impoverished, constrained, low-structure regime. The ketamine condition, interestingly, seemed to combine aspects of both: while it was generally less complex than the awake condition, it remained well above propofol in almost all measures. These results may provides insights into how consciousness can persist under the influence of ketamine and the battery of measures used provides deeper and more comprehensive insights than what is typically gained by using point-measures of complexity.

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