Volume 9, Number 1, Article 7, Pages 1-10 doi:10.1167/9.1.7 http://journalofvision.org/9/1/7/ ISSN 1534-7362
Object perception: When our brain is impressed but we do not notice it
Jürgen Kornmeier
Universitäts-Augenklinik, Freiburg, Germany, & Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, Freiburg, Germany
[home] [e-mail]
Michael Bach
Universitäts-Augenklinik, Freiburg, Germany
[home] [e-mail]
Abstract

Although our eyes receive incomplete and ambiguous information, our perceptual system is usually able to successfully construct a stable representation of the world. In the case of ambiguous figures, however, perception is unstable, spontaneously alternating between equally possible outcomes. The present study compared EEG responses to ambiguous figures and their unambiguous variants. We found that slight figural changes, which turn ambiguous figures into unambiguous ones, lead to a dramatic difference in an ERP (“event-related potential”) component at around 400 ms. This result was obtained across two different categories of figures, namely the geometric Necker cube stimulus and the semantic Old/Young Woman face stimulus. Our results fit well into the Bayesian inference concept, which models the evaluation of a perceptual interpretation's reliability for subsequent action planning. This process seems to be unconscious and the late EEG signature may be a correlate of the outcome.

View full-text

History
Received June 6, 2008; published January 12, 2009
Citation
Kornmeier, J., & Bach, M. (2009). Object perception: When our brain is impressed but we do not notice it. Journal of Vision, 9(1):7, 1-10, http://journalofvision.org/9/1/7/, doi:10.1167/9.1.7.
Keywords
bistable perception, multistable perception, perceptual ambiguity, instable perception, ambiguous figures, Necker cube, Old/Young Woman, EEG, ERP, event-related potentials, object perception
Downloads
446 Total; 0.939 /day (DemandFactor)
 
Search
for articles that cite this paper
for related articles by these authors
for papers that cite this paper
Get citation






jov