Haidong Lu, Beijing Normal University

时间： 2015-10-26 12:00 - 14:00

地点： Room 1113, Wang Kezhen Building

Two incompatible images viewed by the two eyes cause binocular rivalry, during which observers perceive continuous alternations between these two visual images. Recent studies in both humans and monkeys have shown that the primary visual cortex (V1) plays a critical role in the rivalry perception. However, it is unclear whether the rivalry activity observed in V1 relies on top-down conscious influences. We examined the responses of V1 in monkeys under general anesthesia. With intrinsic signal optical imaging and single-trial analysis, alternating activation of ocular dominance columns in V1 was observed during rivalry stimulation. Left- and right-eye columns exhibited counter-phase activation, which were modulated by stimulus features in ways similar to those found in conscious human observers. These observations indicated that binocular rivalry occurs in V1 without consciousness, suggesting that the low-level automatic mechanisms play a more important role than previously believed in handling visual ambiguities.

2015-10-26

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2015-10-26