Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 28, 2026

Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography
Published on: July 26, 2019
The role of alpha oscillations for illusory perception
Joachim Lange1, Julian Keil2, Alfons Schnitzler1
1Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
None:
Alpha oscillations are a prominent electrophysiological signal measured across a wide range of species and cortical and subcortical sites. Alpha oscillations have been viewed for a long time as an "idling" rhythm, purely reflecting inactive sites. Despite earlier evidence from neurophysiology, awareness that alpha oscillations can substantially influence perception and behavior has grown only recently in cognitive neuroscience. Evidence for an active role of alpha for perception comes mainly from several visual, near-threshold experiments. In the current review, we extend this view by summarizing studies showing how alpha-defined brain states relate to illusory perception, i.e. cases of perceptual reports that are not "objectively" verifiable by distinct stimuli or stimulus features. These studies demonstrate that ongoing or prestimulus alpha oscillations substantially influence the perception of auditory, visual or multisensory illusions.
Related Concept Videos
Perception of Sound Waves
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same...
Perceptual Constancy
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...
Gestalt Principles of Perception
Subliminal Perception
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by...
Factors Affecting Perception
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...

