Perception articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Grouping stimuli into categories often depends on a subjective determination of category boundaries. Here the authors report a neuronal population in pre-supplementary motor area whose peak activity predicts the categorical decision boundary between long and short time intervals on a trial-by-trial basis.

    • Germán Mendoza
    • , Juan Carlos Méndez
    •  & Hugo Merchant

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Though the amplitude and frequency of neural oscillations in the alpha band are related to dissociable visual processes, they are not independent mathematically. Here, the authors show that fluctuations in instantaneous frequency predict alpha amplitude during visual discrimination tasks.

    • Stephanie Nelli
    • , Sirawaj Itthipuripat
    •  & John T. Serences

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Though memory and sleep are related, it is still unclear whether new memories can be formed during sleep. Here, authors show that people could learn new sounds during REM or light non-REM sleep, but that learning was suppressed when sounds were played during deep NREM sleep.

    • Thomas Andrillon
    • , Daniel Pressnitzer
    •  & Sid Kouider

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex are known to encode visual features as well as maintain them in working memory. Here the authors report that LPFC neurons encode both perceived and memorized visual features in diverse combinations and the population activity reliably decodes as well as differentiates between these two representations.

    • Diego Mendoza-Halliday
    •  & Julio C. Martinez-Trujillo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perception is guided by anticipating future events, but it is not clear how this is computed neurally. Here, the authors use ultra-fast fMRI to show that humans preplay anticipated visual sequences in the primary visual cortex and that this preplay correlates with faster detection of the stimuli.

    • Matthias Ekman
    • , Peter Kok
    •  & Floris P. de Lange

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perception can be swayed by prior context. Here the authors report an auditory illusion in which sounds with ambiguous pitch shifts are perceived as shifting upward or downward based on the preceding contextual sounds, explore the neural correlates, and propose a probabilistic model based on temporal binding.

    • Claire Chambers
    • , Sahar Akram
    •  & Daniel Pressnitzer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experience constantly shapes perception, but the neural mechanisms of this rapid plasticity are unclear. Here, Holdgraf et al. record neural activity in the human auditory cortex and show that listening to normal speech elicits rapid plasticity that increases the neural gain for features of sound that are key for speech intelligibility.

    • Christopher R. Holdgraf
    • , Wendy de Heer
    •  & Frédéric E. Theunissen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Decision-making balances the benefits of additional information with the cost of time, but it is unclear whether humans adjust this balance within individual decisions. Here, authors show that we do make such adjustments to suit contextual demands and suggest that these are driven by modulation of neural gain.

    • Peter R. Murphy
    • , Evert Boonstra
    •  & Sander Nieuwenhuis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perceiving the size of objects is subjective. Here the authors show that these subjective differences in size perception can be explained by the individual variance in spatial tuning of neuronal populations in the primary visual cortex.

    • Christina Moutsiana
    • , Benjamin de Haas
    •  & D. Samuel Schwarzkopf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural mechanisms underlying efficient coding of natural sensory stimuli have yet to be fully determined. Here, monitoring sensory pyramidal cells in weakly electric fish, the authors find SK channels are necessary for matching the responsiveness of neurons to natural stimuli and subsequent behavioural responses.

    • Chengjie G. Huang
    • , Zhubo D. Zhang
    •  & Maurice J. Chacron

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Prior expectations shape neural processing in the brain and violations of these expectations can have a profound influence on learning. Here the authors demonstrate that such predictive coding mechanisms are already functional in the brains of 12-month-old infants.

    • Sid Kouider
    • , Bria Long
    •  & Sofie V. Gelskov

  • Article |

    In mammals, rapid identification of visual targets is facilitated by differences between the target and the surrounding visual scene. Here the authors demonstrate behavioural and neural correlates of visual pop-out in archer fish, suggesting it is a fundamental component of all vertebrate visual systems.

    • Mor Ben-Tov
    • , Opher Donchin
    •  & Ronen Segev

  • Article |

    Aspects of visual perception learning are known to change with age, but the associated structural correlates are poorly understood. Here the authors show that, surprisingly, visual perception in older individuals involves training-induced structural changes in white matter that are absent in younger individuals.

    • Yuko Yotsumoto
    • , Li-Hung Chang
    •  & Yuka Sasaki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bistable visual perception requires changes in brain activity between different cortical areas. Here, Watanabe et al.demonstrate dynamic patterns of brain activity during bistable visual perception, which link behavioural variability and anatomical individual differences in focal brain regions.

    • Takamitsu Watanabe
    • , Naoki Masuda
    •  & Geraint Rees

  • Article |

    Visual attention is known to affect choice certainty, but exactly how is unclear. Here, the authors use electroencephalography in a visual motion discrimination task and identify neural correlates of choice certainty, which precede the decided action.

    • Leopold Zizlsperger
    • , Thomas Sauvigny
    •  & Thomas Haarmeier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Disruption of glomerular activity maps in the olfactory bulb is believed to have little effect on odour-quality perception. Bracey et al. test this by disrupting olfactory bulb inputs and find that odour recognition relies on matching input patterns to templates from previously encountered odours.

    • Edward F. Bracey
    • , Bruno Pichler
    •  & Troy W. Margrie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bilingual infants possess a unique ability to rapidly acquire the grammar of both of their native languages. Gervain and Werker find that bilingual infants achieve this by using characteristic prosodic cues associated with different word orders.

    • Judit Gervain
    •  & Janet F. Werker

  • Article |

    The health benefits of massage therapy, like the reduction of stress, have so far only been shown in humans. This study uses modelling to demonstrate that, while visiting cleaner fish to have ectoparasites removed, the physical stimulation also acts to reduce stress in the coral reef fish,Ctenochaetus striatus.

    • Marta C. Soares
    • , Rui F. Oliveira
    •  & Redouan Bshary

  • Article |

    Ampullary organs are involved in electroreception, but whether these are derived from placodes, thickened ectoderm, is unclear. In this study, the ampullary organs of the primitive ray-finned fish,Polyodon spathula, are shown to develop from lateral line placodes, suggesting that this is the ancestral state in bony fishes.

    • Melinda S. Modrell
    • , William E. Bemis
    •  & Clare V.H. Baker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In animals, cryptochrome proteins are thought to be the detectors of the Earth's magnetic field, but humans have not been shown to posess mangetosensing capabilities. Foleyet al. demonstrate that the human cryptochrome protein, CRY2, when expressed in Drosophila melanogastercan mediate magnetoreception in a light-dependent manner.

    • Lauren E. Foley
    • , Robert J. Gegear
    •  & Steven M. Reppert

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