Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2025
Cemre Yilmaz, Laura Pabel, Elias Kerschenbauer et al.
2 citations
Perceptual transitions during binocular rivalry take many distinct forms, not just a simple alternation between two images. In 52 participants viewing pairs of different images, gratings, or moving dots, content analysis identified 20 unique categories of transition experience. Each person typically reported 2–3 different transition types per stimulus pair, and these categories remained consistent for the same observer over time but varied across individuals and stimulus content. The findings indicate that subjective visual experience during rivalry is richer and more complex than traditional discrete-response paradigms capture, and they suggest that neuroimaging studies of binocular rivalry may produce different results depending on how transitions are experienced.
Journal of vision
January 5, 2026
Cemre Yilmaz, Kerstin Maitz, Maximilian Gerschütz et al.
Binocular rivalry occurs when each eye sees a different image, causing conscious perception to alternate between them even though the physical stimuli remain constant. Contrast and attention have been shown to influence these alternations similarly, suggesting attention boosts effective stimulus contrast. This study examined brief transition periods between clear percepts, which are less understood. Observers reported four common transition types while contrast or exogenous attention was manipulated. Contrast and attention similarly affected overall rivalry dynamics, but their effects on transition appearance differed. This indicates attention's effect is not merely enhancing stimulus strength, a distinction revealed only when analyzing transition types.
Human brain mapping
June 15, 2026
Adam Coates, Paul Sedlmayr, Anna Wastian et al.
The human claustrum, a small brain structure with extensive connections, responds to visual motion and is associated with subjective ratings of arousal, interest, and valence, similar to the motion-sensitive visual area hMT/V5+. This suggests the visual claustrum may play a role in detecting salient stimuli and modulating attention during sensory processing.