Distributed processing in bistable perception

Abstract

A very incisive way of studying visual awareness and the mechanisms that underlie it, it to use bistable perception. In bistable perception, an observer's perceptual state alternates between one interpretation and its mutually exclusive counterpart while the stimulus remains the same. This gives us the opportunity to examine the intrinsic mechanisms of perceptual organization. Using a variety of stimuli that lead to bistable in human observers, we have examined the interaction of different information sources in the brain, specifically with regards to aware perceptual organization.