scholarly journals Seeing without Knowing: Neural Signatures of Perceptual Inference in the Absence of Report

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 955-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelinde R. E. Vandenbroucke ◽  
Johannes J. Fahrenfort ◽  
Ilja G. Sligte ◽  
Victor A. F. Lamme
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Distractor Task ◽  
Perceptual Inference ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Image Composition ◽  
Choice Decision ◽  
Neural Signature ◽  
Kanizsa Figure

Every day, we experience a rich and complex visual world. Our brain constantly translates meaningless fragmented input into coherent objects and scenes. However, our attentional capabilities are limited, and we can only report the few items that we happen to attend to. So what happens to items that are not cognitively accessed? Do these remain fragmentary and meaningless? Or are they processed up to a level where perceptual inferences take place about image composition? To investigate this, we recorded brain activity using fMRI while participants viewed images containing a Kanizsa figure, an illusion in which an object is perceived by means of perceptual inference. Participants were presented with the Kanizsa figure and three matched nonillusory control figures while they were engaged in an attentionally demanding distractor task. After the task, one group of participants was unable to identify the Kanizsa figure in a forced-choice decision task; hence, they were “inattentionally blind.” A second group had no trouble identifying the Kanizsa figure. Interestingly, the neural signature that was unique to the processing of the Kanizsa figure was present in both groups. Moreover, within-subject multivoxel pattern analysis showed that the neural signature of unreported Kanizsa figures could be used to classify reported Kanizsa figures and that this cross-report classification worked better for the Kanizsa condition than for the control conditions. Together, these results suggest that stimuli that are not cognitively accessed are processed up to levels of perceptual interpretation.

scholarly journals Vision-to-value transformations in artificial neural networks and human brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trung Quang Pham ◽  
Takaaki Yoshimoto ◽  
Haruki Niwa ◽  
Haruka K Takahashi ◽  
Ryutaro Uchiyama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Association Cortex ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Parietal Cortices ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractHumans and now computers can derive subjective valuations from sensory events although such transformation process is essentially unknown. In this study, we elucidated unknown neural mechanisms by comparing convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to their corresponding representations in humans. Specifically, we optimized CNNs to predict aesthetic valuations of paintings and examined the relationship between the CNN representations and brain activity via multivoxel pattern analysis. Primary visual cortex and higher association cortex activities were similar to computations in shallow CNN layers and deeper layers, respectively. The vision-to-value transformation is hence proved to be a hierarchical process which is consistent with the principal gradient that connects unimodal to transmodal brain regions (i.e. default mode network). The activity of the frontal and parietal cortices was approximated by goal-driven CNN. Consequently, representations of the hidden layers of CNNs can be understood and visualized by their correspondence with brain activity–facilitating parallels between artificial intelligence and neuroscience.

scholarly journals Distributed Patterns of Reactivation Predict Vividness of Recollection

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (10) ◽  
pp. 2000-2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie St-Laurent ◽  
Hervé Abdi ◽  
Bradley R. Buchsbaum
Keyword(s):  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Memory Retrieval ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Subjective Quality ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
With Memory ◽  
Objective Marker

According to the principle of reactivation, memory retrieval evokes patterns of brain activity that resemble those instantiated when an event was first experienced. Intuitively, one would expect neural reactivation to contribute to recollection (i.e., the vivid impression of reliving past events), but evidence of a direct relationship between the subjective quality of recollection and multiregional reactivation of item-specific neural patterns is lacking. The current study assessed this relationship using fMRI to measure brain activity as participants viewed and mentally replayed a set of short videos. We used multivoxel pattern analysis to train a classifier to identify individual videos based on brain activity evoked during perception and tested how accurately the classifier could distinguish among videos during mental replay. Classification accuracy correlated positively with memory vividness, indicating that the specificity of multivariate brain patterns observed during memory retrieval was related to the subjective quality of a memory. In addition, we identified a set of brain regions whose univariate activity during retrieval predicted both memory vividness and the strength of the classifier's prediction irrespective of the particular video that was retrieved. Our results establish distributed patterns of neural reactivation as a valid and objective marker of the quality of recollection.

scholarly journals Temporo-parietal cortex involved in modeling one’s own and others’ attention

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arvid Guterstam ◽  
Branden J Bio ◽  
Andrew I Wilterson ◽  
Michael Graziano
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Exogenous Attention ◽  
Attentional State ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Directing Attention ◽  
The Brain

In a traditional view, in social cognition, attention is equated with gaze and people track other people’s attention by tracking their gaze. Here, we used fMRI to test whether the brain represents attention in a richer manner. People read stories describing an agent (either oneself or someone else) directing attention to an object in one of two ways: either internally directed (endogenous) or externally induced (exogenous). We used multivoxel pattern analysis to examine how brain areas within the theory-of-mind network encoded attention type and agent type. Brain activity patterns in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) showed significant decoding of information about endogenous versus exogenous attention. The left TPJ, left superior temporal sulcus (STS), precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) significantly decoded agent type (self versus other). These findings show that the brain constructs a rich model of one’s own and others’ attentional state, possibly aiding theory of mind.

scholarly journals Multivoxel Pattern Analysis Reveals Dissociations Between Subjective Fear and Its Physiological Correlates

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel ◽  
Mitsuo Kawato ◽  
Hakwan Lau
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Physiological Reactivity ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Objectively Measured

AbstractIn studies of anxiety and other affective disorders, objectively measured physiological responses have commonly been used as a proxy for measuring subjective experiences associated with pathology. However, this commonly adopted ‘biosignal’ approach has recently been called into question on the grounds that subjective experiences and objective physiological responses may dissociate. We performed machine-learning based analysis on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to assess this issue in the case of fear. Participants were presented with pictures of commonly feared animals in an fMRI experiment. Multivoxel brain activity decoders were trained to predict participants’ subjective fear ratings and their skin conductance reactivity, respectively. While subjective fear and objective physiological responses were correlated in general, the respective whole-brain multivoxel decoders for the two measures were not identical. Some key brain regions such as the amygdala and insula appear to be primarily involved in the prediction of physiological reactivity, while some regions previously associated with metacognition and conscious perception, including some areas in the prefrontal cortex, appear to be primarily predictive of the subjective experience of fear. The present findings are in support of the recent call for caution in assuming a one-to-one mapping between subjective sufferings and their putative biosignals, despite the clear advantages in the latter’s being objectively and continuously measurable in physiological terms.

scholarly journals Temporo-Parietal Cortex Involved in Modeling One’s Own and Others’ Attention

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arvid Guterstam ◽  
Branden J Bio ◽  
Andrew I Wilterson ◽  
Michael SA Graziano
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Exogenous Attention ◽  
Attentional State ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Directing Attention ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIn a traditional view, in social cognition, attention is equated with gaze and people track attention by tracking other people’s gaze. Here we used fMRI to test whether the brain represents attention in a richer manner. People read stories describing an agent (either oneself or someone else) directing attention to an object in one of two ways: either internally directed (endogenous) or externally induced (exogenous). We used multivoxel pattern analysis to examine how brain areas within the theory-of-mind network encoded attention type and agent type. Brain activity patterns in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) showed significant decoding of information about endogenous versus exogenous attention. The left TPJ, left superior temporal sulcus (STS), precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) significantly decoded agent type (self versus other). These findings show that the brain constructs a rich model of one’s own and others’ attentional state, possibly aiding theory of mind.Impact statementThis study used fMRI to show that the human brain encodes other people’s attention in enough richness to distinguish whether that attention was directed exogenously (stimulus-driven) or endogenously (internally driven).

scholarly journals Metacognition facilitates the exploitation of unconscious brain states

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio Cortese ◽  
Hakwan Lau ◽  
Mitsuo Kawato
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
High Dimensional ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Brain States ◽  
Optimal Action ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Do So

AbstractCan humans be trained to make strategic use of unconscious representations in their own brains? We investigated how one can derive reward-maximizing choices from latent high-dimensional information represented stochastically in neural activity. In a novel decision-making task, reinforcement learning contingencies were defined in real-time by fMRI multivoxel pattern analysis; optimal action policies thereby depended on multidimensional brain activity that took place below the threshold of consciousness. We found that subjects could solve the task, when their reinforcement learning processes were boosted by implicit metacognition to estimate the relevant brain states. With these results we identified a frontal-striatal mechanism by which the brain can untangle tasks of great dimensionality, and can do so much more flexibly than current artificial intelligence.

scholarly journals Characterizing the Structural Pattern Predicting Medication Response in Herpes Zoster Patients Using Multivoxel Pattern Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Zeng ◽  
Jiabin Huang ◽  
Songxiong Wu ◽  
Chengrui Qian ◽  
Fuyong Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Herpes Zoster ◽  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis ◽  
Structural Pattern ◽  
Medication Response

A multivoxel pattern analysis of anhedonia during fear extinction – implications for safety learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin M. Rosenberg ◽  
Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel ◽  
Hakwan Lau ◽  
Katherine S. Young ◽  
Robin Nusslock ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Analysis ◽  
Fear Extinction ◽  
Multivoxel Pattern Analysis

scholarly journals First- and Second-language Phonological Representations in the Mental Lexicon

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 1277-1291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria Sebastian-Gallés ◽  
Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells ◽  
Ruth de Diego-Balaguer ◽  
Begoña Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
First Language ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Brain

Performance-based studies on the psychological nature of linguistic competence can conceal significant differences in the brain processes that underlie native versus nonnative knowledge of language. Here we report results from the brain activity of very proficient early bilinguals making a lexical decision task that illustrates this point. Two groups of Spanish-Catalan early bilinguals (Spanish-dominant and Catalan-dominant) were asked to decide whether a given form was a Catalan word or not. The nonwords were based on real words, with one vowel changed. In the experimental stimuli, the vowel change involved a Catalan-specific contrast that previous research had shown to be difficult for Spanish natives to perceive. In the control stimuli, the vowel switch involved contrasts common to Spanish and Catalan. The results indicated that the groups of bilinguals did not differ in their behavioral and event-related brain potential measurements for the control stimuli; both groups made very few errors and showed a larger N400 component for control nonwords than for control words. However, significant differences were observed for the experimental stimuli across groups: Specifically, Spanish-dominant bilinguals showed great difficulty in rejecting experimental nonwords. Indeed, these participants not only showed very high error rates for these stimuli, but also did not show an error-related negativity effect in their erroneous nonword decisions. However, both groups of bilinguals showed a larger correct-related negativity when making correct decisions about the experimental nonwords. The results suggest that although some aspects of a second language system may show a remarkable lack of plasticity (like the acquisition of some foreign contrasts), first-language representations seem to be more dynamic in their capacity of adapting and incorporating new information.

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