Fig. 1: A rhythmic signature of phenomenological coherence.

A Five natural videos were presented through apertures left and right of fixation, either synchronously or asynchronously. B Participants (n = 26) were instructed to fixate centrally and judge whether the stimulation was perceptually coherent or incoherent. C In an initial behavioral experiment, we used adaptive staircases to determine participants’ threshold delay for each of the five videos. In the subsequent Electroencephalography (EEG) experiment, we presented the videos with no delay (coherent), the staircased delay (threshold), and twice the staircased delay (incoherent). We further separated the threshold trials into coherent and incoherent trials based on participants’ responses. We then decoded between the 5 videos within each condition using spectral power patterns in the alpha and gamma bands. D In the coherent and incoherent conditions, we found that coherent stimuli were decodable from alpha activity, suggesting prominent feedback propagation, whereas incoherent stimuli were decodable from gamma activity, suggesting dominant feedforward propagation. E The threshold condition replicated these results, showing that the representational balance across alpha and gamma rhythms tracks perceived coherence for identical visual inputs. Error bars represent standard errors. Dots represent individual participants. *P < 0.05, +P = 0.064.