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Conflict monitoring and attentional adjustment during binocular rivalry
Author(s) -
Drew Alice,
Torralba Mireia,
Ruzzoli Manuela,
Morís Fernández Luis,
Sabaté Alba,
Pápai Márta Szabina,
SotoFaraco Salvador
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
european journal of neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.346
H-Index - 206
eISSN - 1460-9568
pISSN - 0953-816X
DOI - 10.1111/ejn.15554
Subject(s) - binocular rivalry , perception , psychology , rivalry , cognitive psychology , cognition , electroencephalography , visual perception , neuroscience , economics , macroeconomics
To make sense of ambiguous and, at times, fragmentary sensory input, the brain must rely on a process of active interpretation. At any given moment, only one of several possible perceptual representations prevails in our conscious experience. Our hypothesis is that the competition between alternative representations induces a pattern of neural activation resembling cognitive conflict, eventually leading to fluctuations between different perceptual outcomes in the case of steep competition. To test this hypothesis, we probed changes in perceptual awareness between competing images using binocular rivalry. We drew our predictions from the conflict monitoring theory, which holds that cognitive control is invoked by the detection of conflict during information processing. Our results show that fronto‐medial theta oscillations (5–7 Hz), an established electroencephalography (EEG) marker of conflict, increases right before perceptual alternations and decreases thereafter, suggesting that conflict monitoring occurs during perceptual competition. Furthermore, to investigate conflict resolution via attentional engagement, we looked for a neural marker of perceptual switches as by parieto‐occipital alpha oscillations (8–12 Hz). The power of parieto‐occipital alpha displayed an inverse pattern to that of fronto‐medial theta, reflecting periods of high interocular inhibition during stable perception, and low inhibition around moments of perceptual change. Our findings aim to elucidate the relationship between conflict monitoring mechanisms and perceptual awareness.