title: Perceptual reversals of Necker stimuli during intermittent presentation with limited attentional resources.
abstract: During prolonged viewing of ambiguous stimuli, such as Necker cubes, sudden perceptual reversals occur from one perceptual interpretation to another. The role of attention in such reversals is not clear. We tested whether perceptual reversals depend on attentional resources by manipulating perceptual load and recording event-related potentials (ERPs) during intermittent presentation of Necker stimuli. The results did not reveal any influence for perceptual load on the frequency of reversals. The ERPs showed that perceptual load influenced electrophysiological activity over parieto-central areas in the P1 time window (110-140 ms), but load did not modify the early enhancements of positivity (30-140 ms), which correlated with perceptual reversals at occipito-temporal sites. We conclude that disambiguation of ambiguous figures is based on early mechanisms that can work efficiently with only a minimal amount of attentional resources.
authors.affiliation: Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, IBILI, Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. mintaite@fmed.uc.pt
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Intaitė
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koivisto
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Revonsuo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*