Missing the forest because of the trees: Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought

Nerissa Siu Ping Ho; Daniel Baker; Theodoros Karapanagiotidis; Paul Seli; Hao Ting Wang; Robert Leech; Boris Bernhardt; Daniel Margulies; Elizabeth Jefferies; Jonathan Smallwood

doi:10.1093/NC/NIAA020

Missing the forest because of the trees: Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought

Nerissa Siu Ping Ho^*, Daniel Baker, Theodoros Karapanagiotidis, Paul Seli, Hao Ting Wang, Robert Leech, Boris Bernhardt, Daniel Margulies, Elizabeth Jefferies, Jonathan Smallwood

^*Corresponding author for this work

Neuroimaging

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Conscious awareness of the world fluctuates, either through variation in how vividly we perceive the environment, or when our attentional focus shifts away from information in the external environment towards information that we generate via imagination. Our study combined individual differences in experience sampling, psychophysical reports of perception and neuroimaging descriptions of structural connectivity to better understand these changes in conscious awareness. In particular, we examined (i) whether aspects of ongoing thought - indexed viamulti-dimensional experience sampling during a sustained attention task - are associated with the whitematter fibre organization of the cortex as reflected by their relative degree of anisotropic diffusion and (ii) whether these neurocognitive descriptions of ongoing experience are related to amore constrainedmeasure of visual consciousness through analysis of bistable perception during binocular rivalry. Individuals with greater fractional anisotropy in right hemisphere whitematter regions involving the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the cortico-spinal tract, described their ongoing thoughts as lacking external details. Subsequent analysis indicated that the combination of low fractional anisotropy in these right hemisphere regions, with reports of thoughts with high levels of external details, was associated with the shortest periods of dominance during binocular rivalry. Since variation in binocular rivalry reflects differences between bottom-up and top-down influences on vision, our study suggests that reports of ongoing thoughts with vivid external detailsmay occur when conscious precedence is given to bottom-up representation of perceptual information.

Original language	English
Article number	niaa020
Journal	Neuroscience of Consciousness
Volume	2020
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/NC/NIAA020
Publication status	Published - 2020

Keywords

Binocular rivalry
Detail
Diffusion tensor imaging
Experience sampling
Fractional anisotropy
Ongoing thought

UN SDGs

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Ho, N. S. P., Baker, D., Karapanagiotidis, T., Seli, P., Wang, H. T., Leech, R., Bernhardt, B., Margulies, D., Jefferies, E., & Smallwood, J. (2020). Missing the forest because of the trees: Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2020(1), Article niaa020. https://doi.org/10.1093/NC/NIAA020

@article{085a411e4892444f91964c96ed8f567e,

title = "Missing the forest because of the trees: Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought",

abstract = "Conscious awareness of the world fluctuates, either through variation in how vividly we perceive the environment, or when our attentional focus shifts away from information in the external environment towards information that we generate via imagination. Our study combined individual differences in experience sampling, psychophysical reports of perception and neuroimaging descriptions of structural connectivity to better understand these changes in conscious awareness. In particular, we examined (i) whether aspects of ongoing thought - indexed viamulti-dimensional experience sampling during a sustained attention task - are associated with the whitematter fibre organization of the cortex as reflected by their relative degree of anisotropic diffusion and (ii) whether these neurocognitive descriptions of ongoing experience are related to amore constrainedmeasure of visual consciousness through analysis of bistable perception during binocular rivalry. Individuals with greater fractional anisotropy in right hemisphere whitematter regions involving the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the cortico-spinal tract, described their ongoing thoughts as lacking external details. Subsequent analysis indicated that the combination of low fractional anisotropy in these right hemisphere regions, with reports of thoughts with high levels of external details, was associated with the shortest periods of dominance during binocular rivalry. Since variation in binocular rivalry reflects differences between bottom-up and top-down influences on vision, our study suggests that reports of ongoing thoughts with vivid external detailsmay occur when conscious precedence is given to bottom-up representation of perceptual information.",

keywords = "Binocular rivalry, Detail, Diffusion tensor imaging, Experience sampling, Fractional anisotropy, Ongoing thought",

author = "Ho, {Nerissa Siu Ping} and Daniel Baker and Theodoros Karapanagiotidis and Paul Seli and Wang, {Hao Ting} and Robert Leech and Boris Bernhardt and Daniel Margulies and Elizabeth Jefferies and Jonathan Smallwood",

note = "Funding Information: This project was supported by European Research Council Consolidator awarded to J.S. (WANDERINGMINDS – 646927) and European Research Council awarded to E.J. (FLEXSEM - 771863). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2020. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1093/NC/NIAA020",

language = "English",

volume = "2020",

journal = "Neuroscience of Consciousness",

issn = "2057-2107",

publisher = "Oxford University Press",

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Ho, NSP, Baker, D, Karapanagiotidis, T, Seli, P, Wang, HT, Leech, R, Bernhardt, B, Margulies, D, Jefferies, E & Smallwood, J 2020, 'Missing the forest because of the trees: Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought', Neuroscience of Consciousness, vol. 2020, no. 1, niaa020. https://doi.org/10.1093/NC/NIAA020

TY - JOUR

T1 - Missing the forest because of the trees

T2 - Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought

AU - Ho, Nerissa Siu Ping

AU - Baker, Daniel

AU - Karapanagiotidis, Theodoros

AU - Seli, Paul

AU - Wang, Hao Ting

AU - Leech, Robert

AU - Bernhardt, Boris

AU - Margulies, Daniel

AU - Jefferies, Elizabeth

AU - Smallwood, Jonathan

N1 - Funding Information: This project was supported by European Research Council Consolidator awarded to J.S. (WANDERINGMINDS – 646927) and European Research Council awarded to E.J. (FLEXSEM - 771863). Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Conscious awareness of the world fluctuates, either through variation in how vividly we perceive the environment, or when our attentional focus shifts away from information in the external environment towards information that we generate via imagination. Our study combined individual differences in experience sampling, psychophysical reports of perception and neuroimaging descriptions of structural connectivity to better understand these changes in conscious awareness. In particular, we examined (i) whether aspects of ongoing thought - indexed viamulti-dimensional experience sampling during a sustained attention task - are associated with the whitematter fibre organization of the cortex as reflected by their relative degree of anisotropic diffusion and (ii) whether these neurocognitive descriptions of ongoing experience are related to amore constrainedmeasure of visual consciousness through analysis of bistable perception during binocular rivalry. Individuals with greater fractional anisotropy in right hemisphere whitematter regions involving the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the cortico-spinal tract, described their ongoing thoughts as lacking external details. Subsequent analysis indicated that the combination of low fractional anisotropy in these right hemisphere regions, with reports of thoughts with high levels of external details, was associated with the shortest periods of dominance during binocular rivalry. Since variation in binocular rivalry reflects differences between bottom-up and top-down influences on vision, our study suggests that reports of ongoing thoughts with vivid external detailsmay occur when conscious precedence is given to bottom-up representation of perceptual information.

AB - Conscious awareness of the world fluctuates, either through variation in how vividly we perceive the environment, or when our attentional focus shifts away from information in the external environment towards information that we generate via imagination. Our study combined individual differences in experience sampling, psychophysical reports of perception and neuroimaging descriptions of structural connectivity to better understand these changes in conscious awareness. In particular, we examined (i) whether aspects of ongoing thought - indexed viamulti-dimensional experience sampling during a sustained attention task - are associated with the whitematter fibre organization of the cortex as reflected by their relative degree of anisotropic diffusion and (ii) whether these neurocognitive descriptions of ongoing experience are related to amore constrainedmeasure of visual consciousness through analysis of bistable perception during binocular rivalry. Individuals with greater fractional anisotropy in right hemisphere whitematter regions involving the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the cortico-spinal tract, described their ongoing thoughts as lacking external details. Subsequent analysis indicated that the combination of low fractional anisotropy in these right hemisphere regions, with reports of thoughts with high levels of external details, was associated with the shortest periods of dominance during binocular rivalry. Since variation in binocular rivalry reflects differences between bottom-up and top-down influences on vision, our study suggests that reports of ongoing thoughts with vivid external detailsmay occur when conscious precedence is given to bottom-up representation of perceptual information.

KW - Binocular rivalry

KW - Detail

KW - Diffusion tensor imaging

KW - Experience sampling

KW - Fractional anisotropy

KW - Ongoing thought

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U2 - 10.1093/NC/NIAA020

DO - 10.1093/NC/NIAA020

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85101363990

SN - 2057-2107

VL - 2020

JO - Neuroscience of Consciousness

JF - Neuroscience of Consciousness

IS - 1

M1 - niaa020

ER -

Missing the forest because of the trees: Slower alternations during binocular rivalry are associated with lower levels of visual detail during ongoing thought

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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