Discrete and continuous mechanisms of temporal selection in rapid visual streams

Sébastien Marti () and Stanislas Dehaene
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Sébastien Marti: NeuroSpin Center, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique
Stanislas Dehaene: NeuroSpin Center, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Humans can reliably detect a target picture even when tens of images are flashed every second. Here we use magnetoencephalography to dissect the neural mechanisms underlying the dynamics of temporal selection during a rapid serial visual presentation task. Multivariate decoding algorithms allow us to track the overlapping brain responses induced by each image in a rapid visual stream. The results show that temporal selection involves a sequence of gradual followed by all-or-none stages: (i) all images first undergo the same parallel processing pipeline; (ii) starting around 150 ms, responses to multiple images surrounding the target are continuously amplified in ventral visual areas; (iii) only the images that are subsequently reported elicit late all-or-none activations in visual and parietal areas around 350 ms. Thus, multiple images can cohabit in the brain and undergo efficient parallel processing, but temporal selection also isolates a single one for amplification and report.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02079-x

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