Dissociable Neural Information Dynamics of Perceptual Integration and Differentiation during Bistable Perception.

During auditory bistable perception, a sequence of tones can be heard either as a single stream (integrated percept) or as two parallel streams (differentiated percept). Neural recordings showed that when perceptual alternations arose spontaneously, the integrated percept corresponded to increased neural information integration and decreased neural information differentiation across frontoparietal regions, while the differentiated percept showed the opposite pattern. When perception was driven by an external change in the sound stream, neural oscillatory power distinguished between percepts but information measures did not. The findings demonstrate that integration and differentiation of conscious perception map onto theoretically motivated neural information signatures, suggesting a direct link between phenomenology and neurophysiology.

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Abstract

At any given moment, we experience a perceptual scene as a single whole and yet we may distinguish a variety of objects within it. This phenomenon instantiates two properties of conscious perception: integration and differentiation. Integration is the property of experiencing a collection of objects as a unitary percept and differentiation is the property of experiencing these objects as distinct from each other. Here, we evaluated the neural information dynamics underlying integration and differentiation of perceptual contents during bistable perception. Participants listened to a sequence of tones (auditory bistable stimuli) experienced either as a single stream (perceptual integration) or as two parallel streams (perceptual differentiation) of sounds. We computed neurophysiological indices of information integration and information differentiation with electroencephalographic and intracranial recordings. When perceptual alternations were endogenously driven, the integrated percept was associated with an increase in neural information integration and a decrease in neural differentiation across frontoparietal regions, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the differentiated percept. However, when perception was exogenously driven by a change in the sound stream (no bistability), neural oscillatory power distinguished between percepts but information measures did not. We demonstrate that perceptual integration and differentiation can be mapped to theoretically motivated neural information signatures, suggesting a direct relationship between phenomenology and neurophysiology.