A Neural Basis for Perceptual Dynamics

Perceptual stability is ubiquitous in our everyday lives. Objects in the world may look somewhat different as the perceiver’s viewpoint changes, but it is rare that their essential stability is lost and qualitatively different objects are perceived. In this chapter we examine the source of this stability based on the principle that perceptual experience is embodied in the neural activation of ensembles of detectors that respond selectively to the attributes of visual objects. Perceptual stability thereby depends on processes that stabilize neural activation. These include biophysical processes that stabilize the activation of individual neurons, and processes entailing excitatory and inhibitory interactions among ensembles of stimulated detectors that create the "detection instabilities" that ensure perceptual stability for near threshold stimulus attributes. It is shown for stimuli with two possible perceptual states that these stabilization processes are sufficient to account for spontaneous switching between percepts that differ in relative stability, and for the hysteresis observed when attribute values are continually increased or decreased.

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