Assistant Professor Jason Samaha worked in collaboration with Ph.D. student April Pilipenko to publish this 2024 article in the Journal of Neuroscience, finding that synchronous brain waves in the alpha-band inhibit visual perception, regardless of the strength or presence of a stimulus, leading to false percepts. Simultaneously, changes in one’s pupil size boost perception for strong, but not weak stimuli, suggesting that high arousal causes more accurate vision.