No evidence for altered up- and downregulation of brain activity in visual cortex during illusory shape perception in autism

Utzerath, Christian; Schmits, Iris C.; Kok, Peter; Buitelaar, Jan K.; Lange, Floris P. de

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2019.03.011

Cited by 12 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(82 reference statements)

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“…To dissociate between these two hypotheses, we manipulated the interpretation of the inducer circles as either being persistently present during the display of the illusion (circles condition) or not (no circles condition). In the circles condition, we replicated earlier findings (Kok & de Lange, 2014;Utzerath et al, 2019), that is, enhanced early visual activity in neurons that have their receptive field overlapping with the illusory shape, and suppressed activity in the neurons that had receptive fields overlapping with the inducers during illusion perception. However, when we modified the paradigm such that the inducers could not be perceived as persistently present circles (no circles condition), we still found enhanced activity at the illusory shape location (albeit of reduced magnitude), but the suppressive effects at the inducer locations were absent.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…We first examined whether the circles condition, which reproduces the same experimental paradigm used in previous studies ( Kok & de Lange, 2014 ; Utzerath et al, 2019 ), replicates their up- and downregulation pattern of neural activity (i.e., enhanced activity in those voxels whose receptive fields overlap with the illusory triangle, and suppressed activity in those voxels whose receptive fields overlap with the inducers of the illusory triangle). Two RM ANOVAs were performed to inspect how the average BOLD signal activity within each visual region (V1 and V2) changed as a function of the location (center, contour, and inducers) and inducer configuration (illusory figure and non-illusory figure).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We reasoned that this manipulation allowed us to test whether the suppressive effects related to the inducers reflect reduced prediction error or neural adaptation to perceptually stable input. Specifically, we predicted that if the suppressive effects reported for the inducers in previous Kanizsa studies ( Kok et al, 2016 ; Kok & de Lange, 2014 ; Utzerath et al, 2019 ) correspond to top-down fulfilled predictions, the pattern of results should not qualitatively change as a function of the presence or absence of the circles ( Figure 2 C, upper panel). By contrast, if the suppressive effects taking place at the inducers are generated by neural adaptation of amodally completed circles, the suppression should disappear when the inducers are not perceived as persistently present circles, that is, during the no circles condition ( Figure 2 C, bottom panel).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

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Amodal completion instead of predictive coding can explain activity suppression of early visual cortex during illusory shape perception

2021

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A set of recent neuroimaging studies observed that the perception of an illusory shape can elicit both positive and negative feedback modulations in different parts of the early visual cortex. When three Pac-Men shapes were aligned in such a way that they created an illusory triangle (i.e., the Kanizsa illusion), neural activity in early visual cortex was enhanced in those neurons that had receptive fields that overlapped with the illusory shape but suppressed in neurons whose receptive field overlapped with the Pac-Men inducers. These results were interpreted as congruent with the predictive coding framework, in which neurons in early visual cortex enhance or suppress their activity depending on whether the top-down predictions match the bottom-up sensory inputs. However, there are several plausible alternative explanations for the activity modulations. Here we tested a recent proposal (Moors, 2015) that the activity suppression in early visual cortex during illusory shape perception reflects neural adaptation to perceptually stable input. Namely, the inducers appear perceptually stable during the illusory shape condition (discs on which a triangle is superimposed), but not during the control condition (discs that change into Pac-Men). We examined this hypothesis by manipulating the perceptual stability of inducers. When the inducers could be perceptually interpreted as persistent circles, we replicated the up-and downregulation pattern shown in previous studies. However, when the inducers could not be perceived as persistent circles, we still observed enhanced activity in neurons representing the illusory shape but the suppression of activity in neurons representing the inducers was absent. Thus our results support the hypothesis that the activity suppression in neurons representing the inducers during the Kanizsa illusion is better explained by neural adaptation to perceptually stable input than by reduced prediction error.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

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Amodal completion instead of predictive coding can explain activity suppression of early visual cortex during illusory shape perception

2021

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“…Finally, some participants had previously participated in local studies and had given permission to be approached for other studies, and were thus recruited through local researchers (e.g. Utzerath et al, 2018Utzerath et al, , 2019.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation and serial choice bias are unaltered in autism

Bosch

Fritsche

Utzerath³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or autism is characterized by social and non-social symptoms, including sensory hyper- and hyposensitivities. A suggestion has been put forward that some of these symptoms could be explained by differences in how sensory information is integrated with its context, including a lower tendency to leverage the past in the processing of new perceptual input. At least two history-dependent effects of opposite directions have been described in the visual perception literature: a repulsive adaptation effect, where perception of a stimulus is biased away from an adaptor stimulus, and an attractive serial choice bias, where perceptual choices are biased towards the previous choice. In this study, we investigated whether autistic participants differed in either bias from typically developing controls (TD). Sixty-four adolescent participants (31 with ASD, 33 TD) were asked to categorize oriented line stimuli in two tasks which were designed so that we would induce either adaptation or serial choice bias. Although our tasks successfully induced both biases, in comparing the two groups, we found no differences in the magnitude of adaptation nor in the modulation of perceptual choices by the previous choice. In conclusion, we find no evidence of a decreased integration of the past in visual perception of autistic individuals.

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“…Possible “suspects” here are underpowered experiments and/or differences in the experimental designs. On the other hand, the issue of relation between autistic traits and propensity to experience illusions and hallucinations is far from being fully understood anyway (Pellicano and Burr, 2012 ; Lawson et al, 2014 ; Van de Cruys et al, 2014 ; Palmer et al, 2017 ; Utzerath et al, 2019 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“Normal” Hallucinations and Attention

Bachmann

2021

Front. Neurosci.

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No evidence for altered up- and downregulation of brain activity in visual cortex during illusory shape perception in autism

Cited by 12 publications

References 48 publications

Amodal completion instead of predictive coding can explain activity suppression of early visual cortex during illusory shape perception

Amodal completion instead of predictive coding can explain activity suppression of early visual cortex during illusory shape perception

Adaptation and serial choice bias are unaltered in autism

“Normal” Hallucinations and Attention

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