Abstract
SummaryWhen faced with ambiguous sensory input, conscious awareness may alternate between the different percepts that are consistent with the input. Visual phenomena leading to such multistable perception, where constant sensory input evokes different conscious percepts, are particularly useful for investigating the processes underlying perceptual awareness [1]. Understanding the role that high-level brain regions outside early visual cortex play in perceptual alternations could elucidate how top-down processes modulate conscious perception [2]. In two studies [3,4] published recently in Current Biology, different combinations of the present authors used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to disrupt activity in human superior parietal cortex, and reported seemingly contradictory results [5] concerning the effect of disrupting the normal function of this area on bistable perception. Here we join forces to resolve this discrepancy.
Highlights
When faced with ambiguous sensory input, conscious awareness may alternate between the different percepts that are consistent with the input
Carmel et al [3] stimulated a location in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL), where activity is time-locked to perceptual switches in rivalry [6]
Kanai et al [4] found an opposite effect of TMS to Carmel et al [3]: offline disruption of SPL activity increased percept durations for these bistable stimuli compared to no stimulation, whereas stimulation of a control area did not
Summary
When faced with ambiguous sensory input, conscious awareness may alternate between the different percepts that are consistent with the input. Offline disruption of the function of this area shortened dominance durations (increased switch rates) in binocular rivalry compared to no stimulation, whereas stimulating a control site (the homologous locus in the left hemisphere) did not. The choice of this location was based on the finding that grey matter density in this location predicted percept duration for a bistable rotating sphere.
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