Exploring the role of expectations and stimulus relevance on stimulus-specific neural representations and conscious report.

ABSTRACT: Subjective experience can be influenced by top-down factors, such as expectations and stimulus relevance. Recently, it has been shown that expectations can enhance the likelihood that a stimulus is consciously reported, but the neural mechanisms supporting this enhancement are still unclear. We manipulated stimulus expectations within the attentional blink (AB) paradigm using letters and combined visual psychophysics with magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings to investigate whether prior expectations may enhance conscious access by sharpening stimulus-specific neural representations. We further explored how stimulus-specific neural activity patterns are affected by the factors expectation, stimulus relevance and conscious report. First, we show that valid expectations about the identity

SUBMITTER: Meijs EL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6704346 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature