Spontaneous alpha-band oscillations bias subjective contrast perception

Perceptual decisions depend both on the features of the incoming stimulus and on the ongoing brain activity at the moment the stimulus is received. Specifically, trial-to-trial fluctuations in cortical excitability have been linked to fluctuations in the amplitude of pre-stimulus alpha oscillations (≈8-13 Hz), which are in turn are associated with fluctuations in subjects’ tendency to report the detection of a stimulus. It is currently unknown whether alpha oscillations bias post-perceptual decision making, or even bias subjective perception itself. To answer this question, we used a contrast discrimination task in which subjects reported which of two gratings – one in each hemifield – was perceived as having a stronger contrast. Our EEG analysis showed that subjective contrast was reduced for the stimulus in the hemifield represented in the hemisphere with relatively stronger pre-stimulus alpha amplitude, reflecting reduced cortical excitability. Furthermore, the strength of this spontaneous hemispheric lateralization was strongly correlated with the magnitude of individual subjects’ biases, suggesting that the spontaneous patterns of alpha lateralization play a role in explaining the intersubject variability in contrast perception. These results indicate that spontaneous fluctuations in cortical excitability, indicted by patterns of pre-stimulus alpha amplitude, affect perceptual decisions by altering the phenomenological perception of the visual world.Significance StatementOur moment to moment perception of the world is shaped by the features of the environment surrounding us, as much as by the constantly evolving states that characterize our brain activity. Previous research showed how the ongoing electrical activity of the brain can influence whether a stimulus has accessed conscious perception. However, evidence is currently missing on whether these electrical brain states can be associated to the subjective experience of a sensory input. Here we show that local changes in patterns of electrical brain activity preceding visual stimulation can bias our phenomenological perception. Importantly, we show that the strength of these variations can help explaining the great inter-individual variability in how we perceive the visual environment surrounding us.

Blindness as Empathy: The Politics of Touch in Works by Dan Sterup-Hansen

This article has as its topic the Danish artist Dan Sterup-Hansen (1918–1995) and his paintings and prints on the subject of blind people with canes as well as works related to these. Sterup-Hansen was active as an artist from a young to an old age, but made a significant artistic contribution in the decades following World War II. During this period, he explored a number of themes related to cold war anxiety and the cultural trauma of the World War II. These themes centre on the human body and a phenomenological perception of the world. They are humanitarian in spirit and are related to Sterup-Hansen’s left-wing political views of solidarity, humanism, and advocacy for change and reconstruction after the World War II.

ГЕНЕЗИС ТА ОСОБЛИВОСТІ ФОРМУВАННЯ БАЗОВИХ МОДЕЛЕЙ ІДЕНТИФІКАЦІЇ КОЛЬОРУ

Purpose. The determination of the formation features of basic models of color and identification of color in the initial stages (the 18th – 19th centuries) of scientific research of the problem. Methodology of the research is based on historical and cultural method. The source base is the artistic, scientific and technical literature of the studied period and also artefacts. Results. This publication reveals a generalized approach to theoretical developments on color perception and identification, and covers the initial period of color research and the formation of basic models of color (the 18th – 19th centuries). So in the middle of the 17th century I. Newton founded a seven-color ordering model, placing them to a closed color circle. At about the same time, other attempts at color systemization were proposed, such as color identification in the form of tables of existing paints, the work of I. Brennen and R. Waller. Subsequently, Jacob Christoph Le Blon concluded that in order to get results, you could use only three colors, namely red, yellow and blue. Based on this work, M. Harris presented his color circle, J. Lambert – a triangular color pyramid, and Ph.Runge built a color sphere using the principle of the globe. Goethe, contrary to Newton's physical doctrine of colors, conceived another system, it was based on the phenomenological perception of color. According to Goethe and his followers, the colors come from the struggle of "light" and "darkness". A. Schopenhauer took the step that J. Goethe lacked in his thinking: A. Schopenhauer formed a doctrine of color in terms of psychology, noting the enormous role that our brain plays in color perception, and proposing his model of identification by the principle of intensity / extensiveness/quality. for the formal description of the tri-color system of color, forming a mathe-confirmation of T. Young's theory and came to the conclusion that for the comparison of all shades, three light sources were needed and sufficient: in the red, green and blue parts of the spectrum. The perception of other colors is conditioned by the interaction of these constituents. In his work, J. Maxwell proved that all colors come from a mixture of three spectral colors: red, green, and blue. Based on his research, he introduced the first two-dimensional color spectrum visualization system. H. Grassmann's merit is the mathematical representation of the three spectral colors. E. Hering's theory highlights the psychological aspects of color vision: warm sensations occur for white, yellow, and red colors, while cold sensations occur for black, dark blue, and light blue. G. Peano introduced the concept of "color space" as a system of vector space equations.

Thrown into the world: The shift between pavlova and pasta in the ethnic identity of Australians originating from Italy

Forty-one years on from Huber’s study exploring the assimilation of Italian-Australians, an increasing trend towards ethnic revival can be observed among the third generation of immigrants. Drawing on a case study of a family originating from Calabria in the 1950s and now living in Adelaide, South Australia, I find a widespread intergenerational identification of ethnicity as ‘being Italian’, which has different meanings across the three generations, depending on the individual’s phenomenological perception of being thrown into the world. A pivotal role in this shift of ethnic identity is played by what I refer to as institutional positionality, the individuals’ perceptions of the position of their ethnic ‘being in the world’. By merging sociology of migration, including the Bourdieusian conceptual apparatus of capital, with Heidegger’s existential theory, a reflexive framework is developed that takes into account the relevance of ontology in the field of migration.

The Experimental Flesh: Incarnation in Terms of Quantum Measurement and Phenomenological Perception

What is the relation of the human to the world and the things in it? Do the various forms of human interrogation of the world discover things, and with them, a world? That is, can we reduce Being to a separation of knower from what can be known, or of observer from what can be observed? This article interrogates the question of the human-world relation via an inter-disciplinary analysis. The “flesh of the world” phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty problematises the assumption that there is an inherent distinction between subject and object, by instead identifying the incarnation of both in the embodied act of perception. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of a reality-as-flesh will be employed alongside, and inside, physicist Niels Bohr’s demand that the constituent elements of physical reality emerge via the concurrent incarnation of the measurer and the measured during experimental procedures. Bohrian quantum physics is shown (in a manner which does not require the reader to be experienced in quantum theories) to evoke the co-manifestation of subject and object for which Merleau-Ponty argues. In blurring notions of observer and observed, an ontologically productive, rather than epistemologically interrogative, operation is identified. This is used to investigate the human-world relation, and to argue against the notion that this relation, as a condition for there being phenomena, separates knower from what can be known, or observer from what can be observed.