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Writing Workshop

Writing Workshop. Find the relevant literature Use the review journals as a first approach e.g. Nature Reviews Neuroscience Trends in Neuroscience Trends in Cognitive Science. Writing Workshop. Pick one theory. Writing Workshop. Pick one experiment. Writing Workshop. Pick one technique.

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Writing Workshop

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  1. Writing Workshop • Find the relevant literature • Use the review journals as a first approach e.g. • Nature Reviews Neuroscience • Trends in Neuroscience • Trends in Cognitive Science

  2. Writing Workshop • Pick one theory

  3. Writing Workshop • Pick one experiment

  4. Writing Workshop • Pick one technique

  5. Writing Workshop • Describe experimental design

  6. Binocular Rivalry • What would happen if each eye receives incompatible input? Left Eye Right Eye

  7. Binocular Rivalry • Percept alternates randomly (not regularly) between dominance and suppression - on the order of seconds • What factors affect dominance and suppression? • Several features tend to increase the time one image is dominant (visible) • Higher contrast • Brighter • Motion • What are the neural correlates of Rivalry?

  8. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • What Brain areas “experience” rivalry? • Clever fMRI experiment by Tong et al. (1998) • Exploit preferential responses by different regions • Present faces and buildings in alternation

  9. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • What Brain areas “experience” rivalry? • Clever fMRI experiment by Tong et al. (1998) • Exploit preferential responses by different regions • Present faces to one eye and buildings to the other

  10. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • What Brain areas “experience” rivalry? • Apparently activity in areas in ventral pathway correlates with awareness • But at what stage is rivalry first manifested? • For the answer we need to look to single-cell recording

  11. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • Neurophysiology of Rivalry • Monkey is trained to indicate which of two images it is perceiving (by pressing a lever) • One stimulus contains features to which a given recorded neuron is “tuned”, the other does not • What happens to neurons when their preferred stimulus is present but suppressed?

  12. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • The theory is that Neurons in the LGN mediate Rivalry

  13. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • The theory is that Neurons in the LGN mediate Rivalry • NO – cells in LGN respond similarly regardless of whether their input is suppressed or dominant

  14. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • V1? V4? V5? • YES – cells in primary and early extra-striate cortex respond with more action potentials when their preferred stimulus is dominant relative to when it is suppressed • However, • Changes are small • Cells never stop firing altogether

  15. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • Inferior Temporal Cortex (Ventral Pathway)? • YES – cells in IT are strongly correlated with percept

  16. Neural Correlates of Rivalry • Inferior Temporal Cortex (Ventral Pathway)? • YES – cells in IT are strongly correlated with percept • Why does area IT sound familiar to you?

  17. Neural Mechanisms of Consciousness? • So how far does that get us? • Not all that far – we still don’t know what is the mechanism that causes consciousness • But we do know that it is probably distributed rather than at one locus • Thus the question is: what is special about the activity of networks of neurons that gives rise to consciousness? – that’s still a very hard problem

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