ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Visual Neuroscience
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1664583
This article is part of the Research TopicNeural Mechanisms and Clinical Advances in Binocular VisionView all articles
Multimodal Neurobehavioral Integration in Binocular Color Rivalry: Cortical-Eye Movement Analysis under Color, Location, and Combined Stimuli
Provisionally accepted
- 1Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China
- 2Yunnan Normal University Engineering Research Center of Computer Vision and Intelligent Control Technology Department of Education of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: Color and spatial location are key cues influencing visual selection in binocular color rivalry, jointly modulating attentional resource allocation and prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. However, how these cues—individually and in combination— regulate ocular behavior and PFC activation remains insufficiently understood and lacks systematic empirical investigation. Methods: This study integrates eye tracking, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and reaction time measurements to systematically investigate the cortical and oculomotor response characteristics under a binocular rivalry paradigm, focusing on color rivalry (Color stimuli), spatial location (Location stimuli), and their combined (Color & Location stimuli). Results: The results revealed that Color stimuli elicited rapid saccades, significant pupil dilation, and a decrease in prefrontal HbO concentration. Location stimuli induced stable saccadic patterns and a typical biphasic HbR response in BA46. The combined Color & Location stimuli triggered significant changes in oculomotor behavior during the later processing stage, accompanied by a marked increase in HbO activation in BA10, suggesting its dominant role in multisensory integration and cognitive resource reallocation. Further coupling analyses showed a significant positive correlation between prefrontal HbO concentration and reaction time (r = 0.555, p < 0.01), and a significant negative correlation between HbO concentration and saccade amplitude (r = –0.376, p < 0.05), consistent with the theoretical predictions of the "neural efficiency– cognitive load trade-off" model. Task-dependent coupling relationship were also observed among oculomotor parameters and between eye movement and cerebral hemodynamic signals. Conclusion: Color stimuli induce rapid saccadic behavior and impose higher prefrontal load, Location stimuli engage a more efficient dorsal pathway, while Color & Location stimuli intensify resource rivalry and induce a processing bottleneck, manifested as prolonged reaction times co-occurring with heightened cortical activation.
Keywords: eye tracking, fNIRS, Reaction Time, PFC, Coupling relationship
Received: 12 Jul 2025; Accepted: 26 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Lv, Jin, Yun, Zhao and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zaiqing Chen, zaiqingchen@ynnu.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.