Evidence for multiscale multiplexed representation of visual features in EEG

Abstract Distinct neural processes are often encoded across distinct time scales of neural activations. However, it has remained unclear if this multiscale coding strategy is also implemented for separate features of the same process. One difficulty is that the conventional methods of time scale analysis provide imperfect estimations of time scales when several components are active during a single process. Developing a novel decoding-based time scale estimation method, we detected distinct time scales for simultaneously present features of visual stimuli in electroencephalography. We observed that orientation and colour of grating stimuli were encoded in shorter whereas the spatial frequency and contrast of those stimuli were encoded in longer time scales. The conventional autocorrelation-based estimation of time scale was unable to detect these distinguishable time scales. These results provide new evidence for a multiscale multiplexed neural code in the human visual system and introduces a flexible method for estimating neural time scales.