Electrophysiological correlates of figure-ground segregation directly reflect perceptual salienc

Abstract :

In a figure identification task, we investigated the influence of different visual cue configurations (spatial frequency, orientation or a combination of both) on the human EEG. Combining psychophysics with ERP and time-frequency analysis, we show that the neural response at about 200ms reflects perceptual saliency rather than physical cue contrast. Increasing saliency caused (i) a negative shift of the posterior P2 coinciding with a power decrease in the posterior theta-band and (ii) an amplitude and latency increase of the posterior P3. We demonstrate that visual cues interact for a percept that is non-linearly related to the physical figure-ground properties.

Links:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698909005720
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698909005720