Rubin-vase percept is predicted by prestimulus coupling of category-sensitive occipital regions with frontal cortex

Abstract

Fluctuations in what an observer perceives can be demonstrated in images that give rise to competing percepts, examples include binocular rivalry, figure-ground illusions, and other phenomena. These stimuli are an important and well-studied stimulus set in studying human conscious perception.\n\nOne such stimulus is the Rubins vase illusion, a bistable stimulus that gives rise to the perception of a vase, or the profile of two faces (hereafter referred to as the facevase stimulus). Research using this stimulus has predominately focused on the neural response whilst viewing it (Andrews et al., 2002; Hasson et al., 2001; Kleinschmidt et al., 1998). An explanation for the phenomenological switch could exist in distinct features of the on-going brain activity, Hesselmann, Kell, Eger, & Kleinschmidt (2008) showed that fluctuating BOLD levels in Fusiform Face Area (FFA) prior to presentation of the face-va ...