The contribution of prefrontal cortex to global perception

E. Ciaramelli, F. Leo, M.M. Del Viva, David Burr, E. Ladavas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent research suggests a role of top-down modulatory signals on perceptual processing, particularly for the integration of local elementary information to form a global holistic percept. In this study we investigated whether prefrontal cortex may be instrumental in this top-down modulation in humans. We measured detection thresholds for perceiving a circle defined by a closed chain of grating patches in 6 patients with prefrontal lesions, 4 control patients with temporal lesions and 17 healthy control subjects. Performance of patients with prefrontal lesions was worse than that of patients with temporal lesions and normal controls when the patterns were sparse, requiring integration across relatively extensive regions of space, but similar to the control groups for denser patterns. The results clearly implicate the prefrontal cortex in the process of integrating elementary features into a holistic global percept, when the elements do not form a "pop-out" display.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)427-434
JournalExperimental Brain Research
Volume181
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2007

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