Neural Synchrony and Asynchrony as Mechanisms for Perceptual Grouping and Segmentation

Abstract

The question of whether neural synchrony has functional significance for cortical processing has been an issue of contention in the recent scientific literature. Although the balance of evidence now seems to be favoring a vie,v that synchrony does indeed play a significant functional role, this role's mechanisms and its behavioral consequences have not been fully elucidated. In this research I add to the growing body of evidence in favor of a significant functional role for neural synchrony in cortical processing. By leveraging a modified version of Cheadle, Bauer, Parton, Muller, Bonneh and Usher (2008)'s psychophysical paradigm and through experiments of own design, I find evidence suggesting that when contrast oscillations serve as inputs to the visual system, the system produces behavior that may be more synchronous than the stimulus or less synchronous than the stimulus depending on whether or not the oscillations occur on elements of a common object or on elements of separate objects respectively. The current paradigm has the potential to test behavioral manifestations of the underlying neural dynamics that heretofore were largely thought to be confined to physiological measures. Furthermore, I provide a biophysical model that predicts this behavior and other related electrophysiological findings.