Cueing the Necker cube: Pupil dilation reflects the viewing-from-above constraint in bistable perception

AbstractParkinson’s disease (PD) and normal aging have been associated with changes in visual perception, including reliance on external cues to guide behavior. This raises the question of the extent to which these groups use visual cues when disambiguating information. Twenty-seven individuals with PD, 23 normal control adults (NC), and 20 younger adults (YA) were presented a Necker cube in which one face was highlighted by thickening the lines defining the face. The hypothesis was that the visual cues would help PD and NC to exert better control over bistable perception. There were three conditions, including passive viewing and two volitional-control conditions (hold one percept in front; and switch: speed up the alternation between the two). In the Hold condition, the cue was either consistent or inconsistent with task instructions. Mean dominance durations (time spent on each percept) under passive viewing were comparable in PD and NC, and shorter in YA. PD and YA increased dominance durations in the Hold cue-consistent condition relative to NC, meaning that appropriate cues helped PD but not NC hold one perceptual interpretation. By contrast, in the Switch condition, NC and YA decreased dominance durations relative to PD, meaning that the use of cues helped NC but not PD in expediting the switch between percepts. Provision of low-level cues has effects on volitional control in PD that are different from in normal aging, and only under task-specific conditions does the use of such cues facilitate the resolution of perceptual ambiguity. (JINS, 2015, 21, 146–155)

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Circular inference in bistable perception

10.1101/521195 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Pantelis Leptourgos ◽

Charles-Edouard Notredame ◽

Marion Eck ◽

Renaud Jardri ◽

Sophie Denève

Keyword(s):

Prior Knowledge ◽

Bayesian Approach ◽

Necker Cube ◽

Top Down ◽

Inference Model ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Bistable Perception ◽

Sensory Evidence ◽

The Brain ◽

Healthy Participants

AbstractWhen facing fully ambiguous images, the brain cannot commit to a single percept and instead switches between mutually exclusive interpretations every few seconds, a phenomenon known as bistable perception. Despite years of research, there is still no consensus on whether bistability, and perception in general, is driven primarily by bottom-up or top-down mechanisms. Here, we adopted a Bayesian approach in an effort to reconcile these two theories. Fifty-five healthy participants were exposed to an adaptation of the Necker cube paradigm, in which we manipulated sensory evidence (by shadowing the cube) and prior knowledge (e.g., by varying instructions about what participants should expect to see). We found that manipulations of both sensory evidence and priors significantly affected the way participants perceived the Necker cube. However, we observed an interaction between the effect of the cue and the effect of the instructions, a finding incompatible with Bayes-optimal integration. In contrast, the data were well predicted by a circular inference model. In this model, ambiguous sensory evidence is systematically biased in the direction of current expectations, ultimately resulting in a bistable percept.

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Fast cyclic stimulus flashing modulates perception of bi-stable figure

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.6011 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

pp. e6011

Author(s):

Henrikas Vaitkevicius ◽

Vygandas Vanagas ◽

Alvydas Soliunas ◽

Algimantas Svegzda ◽

Remigijus Bliumas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Necker Cube ◽

Common Mechanism ◽

Perceptual Information ◽

Alternation Rate ◽

Bistable Perception ◽

Perception Time ◽

Neuronal Processing ◽

External Stimuli ◽

The Brain

Many experiments have demonstrated that the rhythms in the brain influence the initial perceptual information processing. We investigated whether the alternation rate of the perception of a Necker cube depends on the frequency and duration of a flashing Necker cube. We hypothesize that synchronization between the external rhythm of a flashing stimulus and the internal rhythm of neuronal processing should change the alternation rate of a Necker cube. Knowing how a flickering stimulus with a given frequency and duration affects the alternation rate of bistable perception, we could estimate the frequency of the internal neuronal processing. Our results show that the perception time of the dominant stimulus depends on the frequency or duration of the flashing stimuli. The duration of the stimuli, at which the duration of the perceived image was maximal, was repeated periodically at 4 ms intervals. We suppose that such results could be explained by the existence of an internal rhythm of 125 cycles/s for bistable visual perception. We can also suppose that it is not the stimulus duration but the precise timing of the moments of switching on of external stimuli to match the internal stimuli which explains our experimental results. Similarity between the effects of flashing frequency on alternation rate of stimuli perception in present and previously performed experiment on binocular rivalry support the existence of a common mechanism for binocular rivalry and monocular perception of ambiguous figures.

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Investigating racing thoughts via ocular temporal windows: deficits in the control of automatic perceptual processes

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291721002592 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Patrik Polgári ◽

Luisa Weiner ◽

Jean-Baptiste Causin ◽

Gilles Bertschy ◽

Anne Giersch

Keyword(s):

Necker Cube ◽

Automatic Processes ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Bistable Perception ◽

Conscious Level ◽

First Time ◽

Subjective Reports ◽

Temporal Windows ◽

Automatic Level

Abstract Background Racing thoughts have been found in several states of bipolar disorder (BD), but also in healthy populations with subclinical mood alterations. The evaluation of racing thoughts relies on subjective reports, and objective measures are sparse. The current study aims at finding an objective neuropsychological equivalent of racing thoughts in a mixed group of BD patients and healthy controls by using a bistable perception paradigm. Method Eighty-three included participants formed three groups based on participants' levels of racing thoughts reported via the Racing and Crowded Thoughts Questionnaire. Participants reported reversals in their perception during viewing of the bistable Necker cube either spontaneously, while asked to focus on one interpretation of the cube, or while asked to accelerate perceptual reversals. The dynamics of perceptual alternations were studied both at a conscious level (with manual temporal windows reflecting perceptual reversals) and at a more automatic level (with ocular temporal windows derived from ocular fixations). Results The rate of windows was less modulated by attentional conditions in participants with racing thoughts, and most clearly so for ocular windows. The rate of ocular windows was especially high when participants with racing thoughts were asked to focus on one interpretation of the Necker cube and when they received these instructions for the first time. Conclusions Our results indicate that in subjects with racing thoughts automatic perceptual processes escape cognitive control mechanisms. Racing thoughts may involve not only conscious thought mechanisms but also more automatic processes.

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Perceptual inferences in schizophrenia: A preliminary study on healthy participants

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2015.09.216 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 30 (S2) ◽

pp. S113-S114 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. Leptourgos ◽

C.E. Notredame ◽

R. Jardri ◽

S. Denève

Keyword(s):

Visual Cues ◽

Necker Cube ◽

Psychotic Symptoms ◽

Bistable Perception ◽

Sensory Evidence ◽

Preliminary Study ◽

Dynamic Measures ◽

Perceptual Systems ◽

Healthy Participants ◽

Inference Task

Recently, Jardri and Denève proposed that positive symptoms in schizophrenia could be generated by an imbalance between excitation and inhibition in brain networks, which leads to circular inference, an aberrant form of inference where messages (bottom up and/or top down) are counted more than once and thus, are overweighted [1]. Moreover, they postulated that psychotic symptoms are caused by a system that “expects what it senses” and as a result attributes extreme weight even to weak sensory evidences. Their hypothesis was then validated by a probabilistic inference task (in prep.). Here, we put forward a new experimental study that could validate the circular inference framework in the domain of visual perception. Initially, we restricted ourselves to healthy controls, whose tendencies for psychotic symptoms were measured using appropriate scales. We investigated the computations performed by perceptual systems when facing ambiguous sensory evidence. In those cases, perception is known to oscillate between two interpretations, a phenomenon known as bistable perception. More specifically, we asked how prior expectations and visual cues affect the dynamics of bistability. Participants looked at a Necker cube that was continuously displayed on the screen and reported their percept every time they heard a sound [2]. We manipulated sensory evidence by adding shades to the stimuli and prior expectations by giving different instructions concerning the presence of an implicit bias [3]. We showed that both prior expectations and visual cues significantly affect bistability, using both static and dynamic measures. We also found that the behavior could be well fitted by Bayesian models (“simple” Bayes, hierarchical Bayesian model with Markovian statistics). Preliminary results from patients will also be presented.

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Temporal Processing in Bistable Perception of the Necker Cube

Perception ◽

10.1068/p7780 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 44 (2) ◽

pp. 157-168 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Jannis Wernery ◽

Harald Atmanspacher ◽

Jürgen Kornmeier ◽

Victor Candia ◽

Gerd Folkers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Temporal Processing ◽

Necker Cube ◽

Bistable Perception

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Supplemental Material for Predictive Value of Body Posture and Pupil Dilation in Assessing Consumer Preference and Choice

Journal of Neuroscience Psychology and Economics ◽

10.1037/npe0000073.supp ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

Predictive Value ◽

Consumer Preference ◽

Pupil Dilation ◽

Body Posture

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The publications and collections of Louis-Albert Necker (1786–1861)

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/anh.2015.0279 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 66-75 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

John Hollier ◽

Anita Hollier ◽

Cédric Schnyder

Keyword(s):

Necker Cube ◽

Optical Illusion ◽

Full List ◽

Scientific Collections ◽

Isle Of Skye

The Swiss geologist and mineralogist Louis-Albert Necker belonged to a family rich in scientific celebrities. Though a professor at the Académie de Genève for 25 years and author of numerous publications, he is mainly remembered today for his description of the “Necker cube” optical illusion and for leaving Geneva to spend the last 20 years of his life in Portree on the Isle of Skye. As a first step towards assessing Necker's contribution to science, a full list of his publications is presented, with comments about their citation in previous bibliographies and about published translations and abridgements. Information about the surviving specimens from his scientific collections, most of which are in the Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Genève, is also presented.

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Emotional responses, sexual arousal, and pupil dilation to male versus female sexual perpetration: an eyetracking study

10.26226/morressier.5cf632c0af72dec2b05547b6 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Joana Carvalho

Keyword(s):

Sexual Arousal ◽

Emotional Responses ◽

Pupil Dilation ◽

Sexual Perpetration

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Oxytocin-Based Health Information Priming Does Not Impact Categorization of Others into Social Groups

10.31234/osf.io/tuqnk ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Miranda Lynn Groft ◽

Nathan Pistory ◽

Rachel Hardy ◽

Peter Joseph McLaughlin

Keyword(s):

Social Behavior ◽

Pupil Dilation ◽

Popular Media ◽

Eye Tracker ◽

News Stories ◽

Written Information ◽

Race Politics ◽

Politics And Religion ◽

The Relationship ◽

Lay Public

With the proliferation of neuroscience-related messages in popular media, it is more important than ever to understand their impact on the lay public. Previous research has found that people believed news stories more when irrelevant neuroscientific explanations were added. We sought to reveal whether such information could cause a change in social behavior. Specifically, based on publicized findings of the relationship between social behavior and the neurotransmitter oxytocin, we proposed that participants would accept more strangers into their in-group, or alternatively decrease in-group size, if told that there were oxytocin-based (relative to psychological construct-based) health benefits for doing so. In two tasks, participants were shown faces and written information about stimuli that could match their race, politics, and religion to varying degrees. In spite of evidence that participants processed the primes, and were sensitive to their level of similarity with stimuli, oxytocin-based priming did not alter categorization, or pupil dilation. It did not alter cross-race viewing behavior, as measured by an eye tracker, in consistent ways. Unexpectedly, pupil dilation increased when viewing stimuli of the same religion, an effect entirely related to White liberal Christians viewing other Christians. Overall, these results suggest that neuroscience information may impact some judgments, but lay people will not alter their likelihood of acceptance of strangers simply because they were primed with a neuroscience- (or more specifically, neurotransmitter-) based reason for doing so.

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