Study of the Neural Basis for Subjective Feature Binding

Tzu-Ching Chiang, Jyh-Horing Chen, Keng-Chen Liang, Chung-Ping Cheng, Sigmund Hsiao, Chao-Hsien Hsieh, Yun-An Huang, Chia-Wei Li

Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan.
Department of Psychology, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi.
Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei city.
Electrical Engineering, Interdisciplinary MRI Laboratory, National Taiwan University, Taipei city.

DOI: 10.4236/jbbs.2013.31006                

Abstract

While it is known that the brain perceives color and motion asynchronously, the specific locations in which the brain binds signals remain unknown. This study distinguishes subjective perception of the capability to bind features and the objective accuracy in feature binding. The stimuli were the same for individual subjects, consisting of random dots (red and green, or yellow and blue) moving either vertically or horizontally. Subjects responded to questions regarding the color or the direction of motion of the dots (objective judgment) and rated their capability in performing the task (subjective judgment). The imaging results of contrasting subjective judgment showed that the activation of the anterior rostral cingulate cortex (rACC) and inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann area [BA] 45/47) during incapable-of-binding responses, compared with the capable-of-binding responses. It is suggested that the rACC is for uncertainty of subjective judgment and BA 45/47 is for the increased burden on working memory. In contrast, there was no imaging results of contrasting the correct and incorrect responses (i.e., objective judgment), and neither was there for the interaction between subjective and objective judgment. The results of conservative conjunction analysis indicated common and shared brain areas for the 2 distinctive binding situations (the correct and capable-of-binding vs the incorrect and incapable-of-binding), including increased activity in the intraparietal lobe (IPL) and the junction areas of the posterior rostral ACC (dACC) and the prefrontal areas, but decreased activity in the medial portion of the IPL, suggesting that feature binding requires maintaining attention. These results clearly isolated subjective judgment from objective judgment and support the view that maintaining attention is involved in feature binding of color and motion.

Keywords

Anterior Cingulate Cortex; Feature Binding; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Intraparietal Lobe; Inferior Frontal Gyrus

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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