Guiding the study of brain dynamics by using first-person data: Synchrony patterns correlate with ongoing conscious states during a simple visual task
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 22, 2002 Antoine Lutz, Jean-Philippe Lachaux, Jacques Martinerie et al. 500 citations
Brain responses to identical stimuli vary greatly even during well-designed cognitive tasks, and this variability is thought to stem from fluctuations in a person's cognitive context—such as attention, spontaneous thoughts, and task strategy. By combining first-person reports with neural recordings, researchers reduced this noise. Subjects viewed a three-dimensional illusion while their brain activity was recorded and they reported their cognitive context. Clustering trials by these reports revealed that patterns of neural synchrony in frontal electrodes before stimulation depended on the degree of preparation and immediacy of perception. These patterns were stable across recordings and influenced both behavioral performance and subsequent brain responses, showing that first-person data can help detect and interpret neural processes.