fMRI response patterns to invisible object stimuli predict inter-individual differences in access to awareness K Schmack1, J Lichte1, P Sterzer2 |
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1Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany |
| In binocular rivalry conflicting monocular images are alternately suppressed from awareness. The temporal dynamics of interocular suppression vary considerably between individuals. Here, we asked whether inter-individual differences in suppression times for emotionally relevant object stimuli can be predicted from neural activity patterns in response to suppressed stimuli. In a behavioral experiment, we used breaking continuous flash suppression (CFS) to measure suppression times of spider and flower pictures in healthy individuals with varying degrees of spider phobia. In a subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, participants then viewed the same spider and flower pictures, but this time stimuli were rendered completely invisible by CFS. We then applied support-vector-regression (SVR) to predict each participant's average suppression time, as measured in the behavioural experiment, from multivoxel pattern activity recorded in the fMRI experiment. Suppression times of spider relative to flower pictures could be decoded from fMRI multivoxel pattern activity evoked by invisible spider vs. invisible flower pictures in bilateral object-selective ventral visual cortex and in left orbitofrontal cortex. Our results suggest that inter-individual differences in unconscious processing of object stimuli determine how fast these stimuli gain access to awareness. |
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