At any given moment, we experience a perceptual scene as a single whole and yet we may distinguish a variety of objects within it. This phenomenon instantiates two properties of conscious perception: integration and differentiation. Integration is the property of experiencing a collection of objects as a unitary percept and differentiation is the property of experiencing these objects as distinct from each other. Here, we evaluated the neural information dynamics underlying integration and differentiation of perceptual contents during bistable perception. Participants listened to a sequence of tones (auditory bistable stimuli) experienced either as a single stream (perceptual integration) or as two parallel streams (perceptual differentiation) of sounds. We computed neurophysiological indices of information integration and information differentiation with electroencephalographic and intracranial recordings. When perceptual alternations were endogenously driven, the integrated percept was associated with an increase in neural information integration and a decrease in neural differentiation across frontoparietal regions, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the differentiated percept. However, when perception was exogenously driven by a change in the sound stream (no bistability), neural oscillatory power distinguished between percepts but information measures did not. We demonstrate that perceptual integration and differentiation can be mapped to theoretically motivated neural information signatures, suggesting a direct relationship between phenomenology and neurophysiology.

中文翻译：

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双稳态感知过程中知觉整合和分化的可分离神经信息动力学。


在任何特定时刻，我们都会将感知场景视为一个整体，但我们可以区分其中的各种物体。这种现象体现了意识感知的两个属性：整合和分化。整合是将一组对象体验为统一感知的属性，而区分是将这些对象体验为彼此不同的属性。在这里，我们评估了双稳态感知过程中感知内容整合和分化的神经信息动态。参与者聆听一系列音调（听觉双稳态刺激），这些音调要么是单一的声音流（感知整合），要么是两个并行的声音流（感知分化）。我们通过脑电图和颅内记录计算了信息整合和信息分化的神经生理学指数。当知觉交替是内源驱动的时，整合知觉与神经信息整合的增加和额顶叶区域神经分化的减少相关，而分化知觉则观察到相反的模式。然而，当感知是由声音流的变化（无双稳态）外源驱动时，神经振荡功率可以区分感知，但信息测量则不能。我们证明感知整合和分化可以映射到理论上激发的神经信息特征，这表明现象学和神经生理学之间存在直接关系。