Decoding reveals the neural substrates of temporal individuation in the human brain
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1
The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Australia
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2
Vanderbilt University, Department of Psychology, United States
When two target objects are presented in close temporal proximity in a rapid serial visual presentation of distractors, they are more difficult to detect when they have the same identity, relative to different identities – a phenomenon known as Repetition Blindness. This failure of perceptual awareness is thought to reflect the capacity limits of individuation, a process wherein spatial and temporal properties are used to register discrete objects within crowded visual scenes. To date, no research has explored the brain regions that support the process of individuation across time (temporal individuation) and its capacity limitations. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and multi-voxel pattern analyses to explore the neural basis of temporal individuation by comparing patterns of activity between instances where two repeated or non-repeated objects were individuated. This comparison reflects differences in the demands placed on the process of temporal individuation. We found that activity patterns in broad network of brain regions could discriminate between repeat and non-repeat stimuli. This network included cortical areas involved in ‘lower-level’ perceptual processes and ‘higher-level’ attentional/executive functions. In addition, these differences in activity could not be attributed to subjects’ manual response, reaction time, regional differences in signal amplitude or any artifacts in the data or analyses. These findings suggest that the perceptual representations constructed through the process of temporal individuation are supported by widespread parts of the brain.
Acknowledgements
We thank Mark Strudwick and Aiman Al Najjar for their assistance with data collection. This research was supported by an ARC Discovery grant and fellowship (DP0986387) awarded to P.E.D.
Keywords:
repetition blindness,
fMRI,
Consciousness,
individuation,
Attention,
Visual Perception,
executive processes,
Multi-voxel Pattern Analysis (MVPA)
Conference:
ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 29 Nov - 2 Dec, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Attention
Citation:
Naughtin
CK,
Tamber-Rosenau
BJ and
Dux
PE
(2012). Decoding reveals the neural substrates of temporal individuation in the human brain.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00191
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Received:
25 Oct 2012;
Published Online:
17 Nov 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Claire K Naughtin, The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia, claire.naughtin@gmail.com
Dr. Paul E Dux, The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia, paul.e.dux@gmail.com