Psilocybin-induced modulation of visual salience processing

Psilocybin alters how people process visual salience during natural scene perception, leading to more focused and exploratory gaze patterns. In a self-blinded study, 23 participants viewed natural scenes under low and high doses of psilocybin while their eye movements were tracked. Under the high dose, fixations concentrated more on salient image regions, inter-fixation distance decreased, and the Shannon entropy of fixations on high-saliency areas indicated more exploratory and less predictable scanning. Resting-state electroencephalography showed broadband spectral power reductions and increased Lempel-Ziv complexity, with delta power negatively correlating with salience metrics. These findings suggest psilocybin shifts attentional dynamics, heightening sensitivity to visual salience and altering gaze behavior.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Psychedelic compounds significantly reshape conscious perception, yet the implications of these alterations for complex visual-guided behaviors remain poorly understood. We investigated how psilocybin modulates visual salience processing during natural scene perception. Twenty-three participants completed eye-tracking tasks under self-blinded low and high doses of psilocybin, in a naturalistic design with experimental conditions unknown to participants and researchers. Subjects viewed natural scenes while their gaze patterns were recorded and analyzed in relation to normative computational saliency maps generated using a deep learning model of visual attention. Results revealed increased fixation on salient image regions and reduced inter-fixation distance under the high-dose condition, suggesting heightened sensitivity to visual salience and more localized gaze behavior. The Shannon entropy of fixations on high-saliency regions indicated a more exploratory and less predictable visual scanning of the images. Complementary resting-state electroencephalography recordings showed broadband spectral power reductions and increased Lempel-Ziv complexity, with delta power negatively correlating with salience metrics. These findings indicate that psilocybin induces a shift in attentional dynamics, altering gaze behavior, and salience processing during natural scene perception.