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Decoding real-world visual scenes from alpha and gamma band flicker evoked oscillations in human EEG
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  • Published: 12 March 2026

Decoding real-world visual scenes from alpha and gamma band flicker evoked oscillations in human EEG

  • James Dowsett1,
  • Inés Martín Muñoz2,3 &
  • Paul Taylor4,5,6 

Scientific Reports , Article number:  (2026) Cite this article

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We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.

Subjects

  • Neuroscience
  • Psychology

Abstract

Current approaches to investigate the role of neural oscillations in natural scene processing have been limited to artificial stimuli and long data collection. We present a new way to decode real-world scenes participants are viewing from the steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) evoked while wearing flickering LCD glasses. We discovered that SSVEP responses from real world scenes are surprisingly complex and have distinct waveform shapes: they differ markedly across scenes and participants but are consistent within individuals, even across multiple days. SSVEP shape varies greatly between stimuli, but is reliable, meaning that decoding works even with a single electrode. Decoding is highly accurate with 5–10 s of data and was still above chance level with less than a second of data. Decomposing the SSVEPs into frequency bands showed that the information about the visual scene is present across all of the harmonics of the flicker frequency: optimal decoding used the broadband signals, but with 40 Hz (gamma band) showing the highest amount of information after band-pass filters. These findings implicate a broad range of oscillations in encoding real-world scenes, with a particular importance for 40 Hz. The SSVEP’s temporal profile is a rich source of information for decoding.

Data availability

All raw data and example code are available from the Open Science Framework project page: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/NF6VM.

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Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG): DO 2460/1–1.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK

    James Dowsett

  2. Institute for Advanced Study, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Inés Martín Muñoz

  3. Institute for Cognitive Systems, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Inés Martín Muñoz

  4. Department of Experimental Psychology, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany

    Paul Taylor

  5. Department of Psychology, Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Paul Taylor

  6. Cognition, Values, Behaviour Lab, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Paul Taylor

Authors
  1. James Dowsett
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  2. Inés Martín Muñoz
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Contributions

JD contributed to all aspects of the manuscript.IMM contributed to data collection, writing analysis code and writing of the manuscript.PT contributed to the design of the experiment and writing/editing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to James Dowsett.

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Dowsett, J., Muñoz, I.M. & Taylor, P. Decoding real-world visual scenes from alpha and gamma band flicker evoked oscillations in human EEG. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-42197-5

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  • Received: 10 October 2025

  • Accepted: 24 February 2026

  • Published: 12 March 2026

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-42197-5

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