Distinct Contributions of Alpha and Beta Oscillations to Context-Dependent Visual Size Perception
Lihong Chen1,2,3,4 · Yi Jiang1,21 State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
2 Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3 Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
4 Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Dalian 116029, Liaoning Province, China
Abstract
Previous studies have proposed two cognitive mechanisms responsible for the Ebbinghaus illusion effect, i.e., contour interaction and size contrast. However, the neural underpinnings of these two mechanisms are largely unexplored. The present study introduced binocular depth to the Ebbinghaus illusion configuration and made the central target appear either in front of or behind the surrounding inducers in order to disturb size contrast instead of contour interaction. The results showed that the illusion effect, though persisted, was significantly reduced under the binocular depth conditions. Notably, the target with a larger perceived size reduced early alpha-band power (8–13 Hz, 0–100 ms after stimulus onset) at centroparietal sites irrespective of the relative depth of the target and the inducers, with the parietal alpha power negatively correlated with the illusion effect. Moreover, the target with a larger perceived size increased the occipito-parietal beta-band power (14–25 Hz, 200–300 ms after stimulus onset) under the no-depth condition, and the beta power was positively correlated with the illusion effect when the depth conditions were subtracted from the no-depth condition. The findings provided neurophysiological evidence in favor of the two cognitive mechanisms of the Ebbinghaus illusion by revealing that early alpha power is associated with low-level contour interaction and late beta power is linked to high-level size contrast, supporting the claim that neural oscillations at distinct frequency bands dynamically support different aspects of visual processing.
Keywords
Binocular depth; Ebbinghaus illusion; Alpha oscillation; Beta oscillation; EEG
