Abstract
The neural mechanisms underlying conscious visual perception have been extensively investigated using bistable perception paradigms. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies suggest that the right anterior superior parietal (r-aSPL) and the right posterior superior parietal lobule (r-pSPL) have opposite roles in triggering perceptual reversals. It has been proposed that these two areas are part of a hierarchical network whose dynamics determine perceptual switches. However, how these two parietal regions interact with each other and with the rest of the brain during bistable perception is not known. Here, we investigated such a model by recording brain activity using fMRI while participants viewed a bistable structure-from-motion stimulus. Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), we found that resolving such perceptual ambiguity was specifically associated with reciprocal interactions between these parietal regions and V5/MT. Strikingly, the strength of bottom-up coupling between V5/MT to r-pSPL and from r-pSPL to r-aSPL predicted individual mean dominance duration. Our findings are consistent with a hierarchical predictive coding model of parietal involvement in bistable perception and suggest that visual information processing underlying spontaneous perceptual switches can be described as changes in connectivity strength between parietal and visual cortical regions.
Highlights
One of the most intriguing issues in neuroscience is how people infer the mental states and intentions of others
This perspective on action and perception has broad explanatory power in several areas of cognitive neuroscience (Friston, Mattout, & Kilner, 2011) – and enjoys support from several lines of neuroanatomical and neurophysiological evidence (Egner & Summerfield, 2013; Rao & Ballard, 1999; Srinivasan, Laughlin, & Dubs, 1982). We apply this framework to communication and consider what would happen if two Bayesian brains tried to predict each other
We consider the notion that a simple form of communication emerges if agents adopt the same generative model of communicative behaviour
Summary
The sensations caused by others and oneself are generated by the same process This leads to a view of communication based upon a narrative that is shared by agents who are exchanging sensory signals. This narrative transcends agency – and involves intermittently attending to and attenuating sensory input. Attending to sensations enables the shared narrative to predict the sensations generated by another (i.e. to listen), while attenuating sensory input enables one to articulate the narrative (i.e. to speak) This produces a reciprocal exchange of sensory signals that, formally, induces a generalised synchrony between internal (neuronal) brain states generating predictions in both agents.
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