Binocular rivalry is an important phenomenon for understanding the mechanisms of visual awareness. Here we assessed the functional locus of binocular rivalry relative to blind spot filling-in, which is thought to transpire in V1, thus providing a reference point for assessing the locus of rivalry. We conducted two experiments to explore the functional order of binocular rivalry and blind spot f...

When the two eyes are presented with conflicting stimuli, perception starts to fluctuate over time (i.e., binocular rivalry). A similar fluctuation occurs when two patterns are presented to a single eye (i.e., monocular rivalry), or when they are swapped rapidly and repeatedly between the eyes (i.e., stimulus rivalry). Although all these cases lead to rivalry, in quantitative terms these modes ...

Voluntary control and conscious perception seem to be related: when we are confronted with ambiguous images we are in some cases and to some extent able to voluntarily select a percept. However, to date voluntary control has not been used in neurophysiological studies on the correlates of conscious perception, presumably because the dynamic of perceptual reversals was not suitable. We exposed t...

During binocular rivalry, visual perception switches between a stimulus viewed by one eye and a different stimulus viewed by the other. We studied rivalry in split-brain observers to test two explanations. Rivalry could reflect switching of activity between the cerebral hemispheres, or switching by a structure in the right frontoparietal cortex. From these two theories, we predict no rivalry wh...

Visual rivalry has been extensively characterized in the literature. It is thought to require spatial conflict between overlapping visual presentations, even in studies that have found nonspatial (i.e., nonretinal) influences on rivalry. Unexpectedly, we identified visual rivalry in the complete absence of spatial conflict. Participants experienced visual rivalry when we placed a nonambiguous m...

Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been engaged in heated rivalry and conflict in the Middle East. These two regional powers are both major oil-exporting countries; in major foreign policy issues, therefore, oil is used as an important tool to pursue goals. Iran and Saudi Arabia have a long history of differences on oil policies, but one of the most severe differences emerged in 2011-2016, along w...

when the tunisian revolution triggered the domino of the collapse arab leaders, it was not anticipated to reach to syria creating a deep conflict with local, regional and trans-regional dimensions. however, when the protests speared to syria, various players try to exploit it to their own advantage, and an all-out conflict began. due to syria's geopolitical location, regional powers such as ira...

In this paper we investigated the relation between personality and the rate of perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry. Studies have demonstrated that slower rivalry alternations are associated with a range of clinical conditions. It is less clear whether rivalry dynamics similarly co-vary with individual differences in psychological traits seen across non-clinical population. We asses...

The neural basis of binocular rivalry has been the subject of vigorous debate. Do discrepant monocular patterns rival for awareness because of neural competition among pattern representations or monocular channels? In this article, I briefly review psychophysical and neurophysiological evidence pertaining to both theories and discuss important new neuroimaging data which reveal that rivalry is ...

The study of international rivalry is a thriving research program in international relations, but it focuses primarily on strategic rivalries and generally neglects both commercial rivalries and the impact of domestic politics. We examine commercial rivalry and the causal paths through which it can escalate to war. After identifying alternative theoretical explanations, we focus on the Anglo-Sp...