Microsaccade rate varies with subjective visibility during motion-induced blindness.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 19357789.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0005163 and PMC identifier 2664481.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Motion-induced blindness (MIB) occurs when a dot embedded in a motion field subjectively vanishes. Here we report the first psychophysical data concerning effects of microsaccade/eyeblink rate upon perceptual switches during MIB. We find that the rate of microsaccades/eyeblink rises before and after perceptual transitions from not seeing to seeing the dot, and decreases before perceptual transitions from seeing it to not seeing it. In addition, event-related fMRI data reveal that, when a dot subjectively reappears during MIB, the blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal increases in V1v and V2v and decreases in contralateral hMT+. These BOLD signal changes observed upon perceptual state changes in MIB could be driven by the change of perceptual states and/or a confounding factor, such as the microsaccade/eyeblink rate.
Medical subject headings
- Blindness
- Blinking
- Motion
- Optical Illusions
- Saccades