The spatiotemporal dynamics of binocular rivalry: evidence for increased top-down flow prior to a perceptual switch.

Abstract

According to most theories, perceptual switching during binocular rivalry is caused by competition between the neural representations of the two input images. It remains unclear whether competition is resolved already at the early stages of visual processing and that information about the dominant percept is then fed forward to more high-level areas or whether competition is first resolved in high-level areas and then fed back to lower levels. This study aimed to dissociate between these theories by investigating the direction of information flow prior to a perceptual switch, using Granger causality on classifier output originating from occipital, temporal, parietal and frontal regions of interest. The results point toward increased top-down information flow between temporal and occipital areas before a switch in dominance. These findings do not support a low-level account of binocular rivalry but are in line with high-level and hybrid explanations.