J Neurophysiol. 2011 Jul 20. [Epub ahead of print]
The role of mutual inhibition in binocular rivalry.
Seely J, Chow CC.
Binocular rivalry is a phenomenon that occurs when ambiguous images are presented
to each of the eyes. The observer generally perceives just one image at a time,
with perceptual switches occurring every few seconds. A natural assumption is
that this perceptual mutual exclusivity is achieved via mutual inhibition between
populations of neurons that encode for either percept. Theoretical models that
incorporate mutual inhibition have been largely successful at capturing
experimental features of rivalry, including Levelt's propositions, which
characterize perceptual dominance durations as a function of image contrasts.
However, basic mutual inhibition models do not fully comply with Levelt's fourth
proposition, which states that percepts alternate faster as the stimulus
contrasts to both eyes are increased simultaneously. This theory-experiment
discrepancy has been taken as evidence against the role of mutual inhibition for
binocular rivalry. Here, we show how various biophysically plausible
modifications to mutual inhibition models can resolve this problem.
PMID: 21775721 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Paper can be downloaded here.
Scientific Clearing House 
[…] I gave the Bodian Seminar at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute of Johns Hopkins today. I talked about cortical dynamics in the presence of conflicting stimuli. My slides are here. A summary of part of my talk can be found here. Other pertinent papers can be found here and here. […]
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