Reversal negativity and bistable stimuli: Attention, awareness, or something else?

• Published in: Brain and cognition 2010-10, Vol.74 (1), p.24-34
• Main Authors: Intaitė, Monika, Koivisto, Mika, Rukšėnas, Osvaldas, Revonsuo, Antti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Ambiguous figures; Attention - physiology; Awareness - physiology; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Cognitive Processes; Comparative Analysis; Correlation; Diagnostic Tests; Electroencephalography; Electrophysiology; Event-related potentials; Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; N2pc; Natural sciences; Naturvetenskap; Necker cube; Optical Illusions - physiology; Perception; Photic Stimulation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Reversal negativity; Vision; Visual Perception; Visual Perception - physiology; Visual Stimuli
• ISSN: 0278-2626; 1090-2147; 1090-2147
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2010.06.002

Ambiguous (or bistable) figures are visual stimuli that have two mutually exclusive perceptual interpretations that spontaneously alternate with each other. Perceptual reversals, as compared with non-reversals, typically elicit a negative difference called reversal negativity (RN), peaking around 250 ms from stimulus onset. The cognitive interpretation of RN remains unclear: it may reflect either bottom-up processes, attentional processes that select between the alternative views of the stimulus, or it may reflect the change in the contents of subjective awareness. In the present study, event-related potentials in response to endogenous unilateral and bilateral reversals of two Necker lattices were compared with exogenously induced reversals of unambiguous lattices. The RN neither resembled the attention-related N2pc response, nor did it correlate with the content of subjective visual awareness. Thus, we conclude that RN is a non-attentional ERP correlate of the changes in the perceptual configuration of the presented object.