Graduate Student / Postdoc Seminar

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Bistable Dynamics of Perceiving Ambiguous Stimuli

Speaker: John Rinzel

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Friday, October 28, 2016, 1 p.m.

Synopsis:

When experiencing an ambiguous sensory stimulus (e.g., the vase-faces image), subjects may report random alternations (time scale, seconds) between the possible interpretations. I will describe dynamical models for neuronal populations that compete through mutual inhibition for dominance - showing alternations, behaving as noisy oscillators or as multistable systems subject to noise-driven switching. In highly idealized formulations networks are percept specific without direct representation of stimulus features. Our recent work involves perception of ambiguous auditory stimuli (e.g., http://auditoryneuroscience.com/topics/streaming-galloping-rhythm-paradigm). The models explicitly incorporate tone features -- perceptual selectivity is emergent rather than built-in.