BINOCULAR RIVALRY PERCEPTUAL FILLING-IN AND THEIR INTERACTIONS

Visual perception relies on both selective andconstructive perceptual processes. For examplebinocular rivalry leads to the selective perceptionof one of two competing monocular stimuli whereasvisual phantom formation leads to perceptualfilling-in of a large gap between two collinearlyaligned gratings. This book explores the role ofperceptual and attentional mechanisms in binocularrivalry and perceptual filling-in and investigatesthe neural interactions between rivalry andfilling-in to gain new insights into the nature ofthese perceptual phenomena. These studies providecompelling new evidence suggesting that the neuralmechanisms underlying selective perception andconstructive perception both operate at early stagesof visual processing and that dynamic interactionscan take place between these mechanisms at these sameearly sites. Moreover the mechanistic approachwhich this book takes to study visual awareness ismore promising to help us understand howconsciousness arises as a consequence of brainactivity than merely searching for the neuralcorrelates of consciousness.