1
|
Budson AE, Richman KA, Kensinger EA. Consciousness as a Memory System. Cogn Behav Neurol 2022; 35:263-297. [PMID: 36178498 PMCID: PMC9708083 DOI: 10.1097/wnn.0000000000000319] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2022] [Accepted: 05/03/2022] [Indexed: 01/31/2023]
Abstract
We suggest that there is confusion between why consciousness developed and what additional functions, through continued evolution, it has co-opted. Consider episodic memory. If we believe that episodic memory evolved solely to accurately represent past events, it seems like a terrible system-prone to forgetting and false memories. However, if we believe that episodic memory developed to flexibly and creatively combine and rearrange memories of prior events in order to plan for the future, then it is quite a good system. We argue that consciousness originally developed as part of the episodic memory system-quite likely the part needed to accomplish that flexible recombining of information. We posit further that consciousness was subsequently co-opted to produce other functions that are not directly relevant to memory per se, such as problem-solving, abstract thinking, and language. We suggest that this theory is compatible with many phenomena, such as the slow speed and the after-the-fact order of consciousness, that cannot be explained well by other theories. We believe that our theory may have profound implications for understanding intentional action and consciousness in general. Moreover, we suggest that episodic memory and its associated memory systems of sensory, working, and semantic memory as a whole ought to be considered together as the conscious memory system in that they, together, give rise to the phenomenon of consciousness. Lastly, we suggest that the cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that makes consciousness possible, and that every cortical region contributes to this conscious memory system.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Andrew E. Budson
- Center for Translational Cognitive Neuroscience, Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Boston, Massachusetts
- Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Kenneth A. Richman
- Center for Health Humanities, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Boston, Massachusetts
| | | |
Collapse
|
2
|
Davidson MJ, Graafsma IL, Tsuchiya N, van Boxtel J. A multiple-response frequency-tagging paradigm measures graded changes in consciousness during perceptual filling-in. Neurosci Conscious 2020; 2020:niaa002. [PMID: 32296545 PMCID: PMC7151726 DOI: 10.1093/nc/niaa002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2019] [Revised: 02/07/2020] [Accepted: 02/20/2020] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Perceptual filling-in (PFI) occurs when a physically present visual target disappears from conscious perception, with its location filled-in by the surrounding visual background. These perceptual changes are complete, near instantaneous, and can occur for multiple separate locations simultaneously. Here, we show that contrasting neural activity during the presence or absence of multi-target PFI can complement other findings from multistable phenomena to reveal the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We presented four peripheral targets over a background dynamically updating at 20 Hz. While participants reported on target disappearances/reappearances via button press/release, we tracked neural activity entrained by the background during PFI using steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) recorded in the electroencephalogram. We found background SSVEPs closely correlated with subjective report, and increased with an increasing amount of PFI. Unexpectedly, we found that as the number of filled-in targets increased, the duration of target disappearances also increased, suggesting that facilitatory interactions exist between targets in separate visual quadrants. We also found distinct spatiotemporal correlates for the background SSVEP harmonics. Prior to genuine PFI, the response at the second harmonic (40 Hz) increased before the first (20 Hz), which we tentatively link to an attentional effect, while no such difference between harmonics was observed for physically removed stimuli. These results demonstrate that PFI can be used to study multi-object perceptual suppression when frequency-tagging the background of a visual display, and because there are distinct neural correlates for endogenously and exogenously induced changes in consciousness, that it is ideally suited to study the NCC.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Matthew J Davidson
- School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Irene L Graafsma
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1001 NK, the Netherlands.,Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.,Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Naotsugu Tsuchiya
- School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.,Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.,Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.,Advanced Telecommunications Research Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan
| | - Jeroen van Boxtel
- School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.,Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
New JJ, Scholl BJ. Motion-induced blindness for dynamic targets: Further explorations of the perceptual scotoma hypothesis. J Vis 2018; 18:24. [DOI: 10.1167/18.9.24] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Joshua J. New
- Department of Psychology, Barnard College, New York, NY, USA
- https://
| | - Brian J. Scholl
- Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
- http://perception.yale.edu/
| |
Collapse
|