Claudia Lunghi
PhD Student in Cognitive Science, University of Florence
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Contacts
Research laboratories
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Education
- 2010-2013: Doctoral School of Psychology (curriculum cognitive science), University of Florence, Italy. Advisors: David C Burr, M Concetta Morrone.
- 2006-2008: MA Cognitive Neuroscience, 110/110 cum laude, Department of Psychology, Libera Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milano, Italy.
- 2003-2006: BA Philosophy,110/110 cum laude, Department of Philosophy, Libera Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milano, Italy.
Current research and interests
- Binocular Rilvalry
- Plasticity of the visual system
- Multi-sensory perception
- Bistable perception
- Amblyopia
Publications
2011
Lunghi C, Burr DC, Morrone C. (2011). Brief periods of monocular deprivation disrupt ocular balance in human adult visual cortex, Curr Biol. 2011 Jul 26;21(14):R538-9. PDF
Neuroplasticity is a fundamental property of the developing mammalian visual system, with residual potential in adult human cortex [1]. A short period of abnormal visual experience (such as occlusion of one eye) before closure of the critical period has dramatic and permanent neural consequences, reshaping visual cortical organization in favour of the non-deprived eye [2,3]. We used binocular rivalry [4] - a sensitive probe of neural competition - to demonstrate that adult human visual cortex retains a surprisingly high degree of neural plasticity, with important perceptual consequences. We report that 150 minutes of monocular deprivation strongly affects the dynamics of binocular rivalry, unexpectedly causing the deprived eye to prevail in conscious perception twice as much as the non-deprived eye, with significant effects for up to 90 minutes. Apparent contrast of stimuli presented to the deprived eye was also increased, suggesting that the deprivation acts by up-regulation of cortical gain-control mechanisms of the deprived eye. The results suggest that adult visual cortex retains a good deal of plasticity that could be important in reaction to sensory loss.
2010
Lunghi, C., Binda, P. & Morrone, M. C. (2010). Touch disambiguates rivalrous perception at early stages of visual analysis,Curr Biol, 4 (20), R143-144. PDF
Binocular rivalry is a powerful tool to study human consciousness: two equally salient stimuli are imaged on the retinae, but at any given instant only one is consciously perceived, the other suppressed.The suppression takes place early, probably in V1. However, a trace of the suppressed signal has been detected along the dorsal visual pathway (BOLD responses) and demonstrated with psychophysical experiments. The suppressed image of a rotating sphere during rivalry is restored to consciousness when the observer actively controls the rotation and a similar effect on the suppressed signal has been shown for motion perception and reflexive eye movements (see Supplemental References). Here, we asked whether cross-modal sensory signals could selectively interact with rivalrous visual signals that are analyzed at a very early stage, probably V1. An auditory stimulus, when attended, can influence binocular rivalry, extending dominance times for a congruent visual stimulus. Tactile information can also disambiguate unstable visual motion and can fuse with vision to improve discrimination (e.g. slant). Our results indicate that a haptic oriented stimulus can disambiguate visual perception during binocular rivalry of gratings of orthogonal orientation, not only by prolonging dominance but also by curtailing suppression of the visual stimulus of matched orientation. The effect is selective for the spatial frequency of the stimuli, suggesting that haptic signals interact with early visual representations to enhance access to conscious perception.
Conferences
- 06-11/05/2011: “VSS 2011” (Vision Science Society, Annual Meeting), Naples (Florida, US). Talk, title: “ Experience-dependent plasticity in adult human visual cortex revealed by binocular rivalry”. Link
- 08/22-26/2010: “ECVP 2010” (European Conference on Visual Perception), Lausanne (Switzerland). Talk, title: "The effect of transient monocular deprivation on binocular rivalry". Link;
- 08/24-28/2009: “ECVP 2009” (European Conference on Visual Perception), Regensburg (Germany). Poster Presentation. Link;
