Resting-state neural correlates of visual Gestalt experience

Subjective perceptual experience is influenced not only by bottom-up sensory information and experience-based top-down processes, but also by an individual’s current brain state. Specifically, a previous study found increased prestimulus insula and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) activity before participants perceived an illusory Gestalt (global) compared with the non-illusory (local) interpretation of a bistable stimulus. That study provided only a snapshot of the brain state that favors the illusory interpretation. In the current study, we tested whether areas that differentiate between the illusory and non-illusory perception, immediately before stimulus onset, are also associated with an individual’s general tendency to perceive it, which remains stable over time. We examined individual differences in task-free functional connectivity of insula and IPS and related them to differences in the individuals’ duration of the two stimulus interpretations. We found stronger connectivity of the IPS with areas of the default mode and visual networks to be associated with shorter local perceptual phases, i.e. a faster switch to an illusory percept, and an opposite effect for insula connectivity with the early visual cortex. Our findings suggest an important role of IPS and insula interactions with nodes of key intrinsic networks in forming a perceptual tendency toward illusory Gestalt perception.