• Home
  1. Home
  2. Cognitive modulations of early visual cortex activity in humans
Doctoral thesis
OA Policy
English

Cognitive modulations of early visual cortex activity in humans

Contributors

Rauss, Karsten

Directors

Schwartz, Sophie; Vuilleumier, Patrik

Defense date

2010-01-08

Abstract

The experiments conducted for this thesis examined the earliest stages of processing in human visual cortex. Using electroencephalographic recordings, it was observed that the first component of the visual evoked potential, the so-called C1, is affected by learning and attention. This contrasts with earlier studies which overwhelmingly reported no effects of higher cognitive processes on early visual cortex activity. It is suggested that methodological improvements such as the adaptation of stimulus parameters to the physiological characteristics of lower visual areas partly explain the new findings. Together with other recent studies, these results show that previously prevalent notions of primary visual cortex (V1) as an inflexible module for the treatment of low-level stimulus characteristics may need to be revised. The idea that V1 can act as an adaptive and flexible processor, previously based on animal studies, is thus starting to gain support from the human literature.

Keywords

  • Attention
  • C1
  • EEG
  • Perceptual learning
  • VEP
  • Vision

Note

Diplôme commun des univ. de Genève et Lausanne

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

RAUSS, Karsten. Cognitive modulations of early visual cortex activity in humans. Doctoral Thesis, 2010. doi: 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:5654

Main files (1)

Thesis

Identifiers

1014views
1345downloads

Technical informations

Creation

12/03/2010 14:41:00

First validation

12/03/2010 14:41:00

Update

14/03/2023 15:26:01

Status update

14/03/2023 15:26:01

Last indexation

13/05/2025 15:44:01
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of Geneva
OpenAIRE Indexed & Validated