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Carrasco M, Spering M. Perception-action Dissociations as a Window into Consciousness. J Cogn Neurosci 2024; 36:1557-1566. [PMID: 38865201 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2024]
Abstract
Understanding the neural correlates of unconscious perception stands as a primary goal of experimental research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In this Perspectives paper, we explain why experimental protocols probing qualitative dissociations between perception and action provide valuable insights into conscious and unconscious processing, along with their corresponding neural correlates. We present research that utilizes human eye movements as a sensitive indicator of unconscious visual processing. Given the increasing reliance on oculomotor and pupillary responses in consciousness research, these dissociations also provide a cautionary tale about inferring conscious perception solely based on no-report protocols.
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Páleník J. What does it mean for consciousness to be multidimensional? A narrative review. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1430262. [PMID: 38966739 PMCID: PMC11222411 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1430262] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2024] [Accepted: 06/10/2024] [Indexed: 07/06/2024] Open
Abstract
A recent development in the psychological and neuroscientific study of consciousness has been the tendency to conceptualize consciousness as a multidimensional phenomenon. This narrative review elucidates the notion of dimensionality of consciousness and outlines the key concepts and disagreements on this topic through the viewpoints of several theoretical proposals. The reviewed literature is critically evaluated, and the main issues to be resolved by future theoretical and empirical work are identified: the problems of dimension selection and dimension aggregation, as well as some ethical considerations. This narrative review is seemingly the first to comprehensively overview this specific aspect of consciousness science.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julie Páleník
- First Department of Neurology, St. Anne’s University Hospital and Medical Faculty of Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
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Maffei A, Gambarota F, Liotti M, Dell'Acqua R, Tsuchiya N, Sessa P. Conscious perception of fear in faces: Insights from high-density EEG and perceptual awareness scale with threshold stimuli. Cortex 2024; 174:93-109. [PMID: 38493568 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.02.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2023] [Revised: 10/12/2023] [Accepted: 02/08/2024] [Indexed: 03/19/2024]
Abstract
Contrary to the extensive research on processing subliminal and/or unattended emotional facial expressions, only a minority of studies have investigated the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) of emotions conveyed by faces. In the present high-density electroencephalography (EEG) study, we first employed a staircase procedure to identify each participant's perceptual threshold of the emotion expressed by the face and then compared the EEG signals elicited in trials where the participants were aware with the activity elicited in trials where participants were unaware of the emotions expressed by these, otherwise identical, faces. Drawing on existing knowledge of the neural mechanisms of face processing and NCCs, we hypothesized that activity in frontal electrodes would be modulated in relation to participants' awareness of facial emotional content. More specifically, we hypothesized that the NCC of fear seen on someone else's face could be detected as a modulation of a later and more anterior (i.e., at frontal sites) event-related potential (ERP) than the face-sensitive N170. By adopting a data-driven approach and cluster-based statistics to the analysis of EEG signals, the results were clear-cut in showing that visual awareness of fear was associated with the modulation of a frontal ERP component in a 150-300 msec interval. These insights are dissected and contextualized in relation to prevailing theories of visual consciousness and their proposed NCC benchmarks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Maffei
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy; Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Filippo Gambarota
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy; Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Mario Liotti
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy; Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Roberto Dell'Acqua
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy; Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Naotsugu Tsuchiya
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health & School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Suita-shi, Osaka, Japan; Laboratory Head, Laboratory of Qualia Structure, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto, Japan.
| | - Paola Sessa
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy; Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
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Kim C, Chong SC. Partial blindness: Visual experience is not rich, but not sparse. Psychon Bull Rev 2023:10.3758/s13423-023-02432-w. [PMID: 38151692 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02432-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/04/2023] [Indexed: 12/29/2023]
Abstract
Is our perceptual experience constrained by an information bottleneck (i.e., the limited capacity for cognitive access), and if so, how? To answer these questions, we investigated observers' perceptual resolution for an individual face when they saw either a single face or multiple faces simultaneously. We characterized perceptual resolution by measuring how accurately observers detected the degradation of a face. In two experiments, we found that the resolution of perception decreased when seeing multiple faces compared to when seeing a single face, which mainly resulted from the neglect of degradation. Importantly, this degradation neglect was based on partial blindness rather than complete blindness to a face, indicating that perceptual experience is limited by an information bottleneck as a form of partial blindness to an individual item. Together, our findings suggest that perceptual experience at a glance might be sparser than retinal resolution or perceptual resolution measured under conditions where the target stimulus is the sole focus of attention; however, it might be richer than a small handful of items.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheongil Kim
- Graduate Program in Cognitive Science, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Sang Chul Chong
- Graduate Program in Cognitive Science, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
- Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, Korea.
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Hulme OJ, Roulston B, Overgaard M. Does report modality modulate psychophysical sensitivity? The jury remains out. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1226588. [PMID: 37928594 PMCID: PMC10621792 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1226588] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 11/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Scientific studies of perception use motoric reports as the principal means of communicating subjective experience. In such experiments, a widely held and implicit assumption is that the motor action conveys but does not tamper with perceptual experience. We tested nine observers on a luminance detection task in a cross-over repeated measures design. In separate conditions, observers reported their detection via movements of either their hands or eyes. We found only anecdotal evidence for any modality-dependent effect on psychophysical sensitivity. We also reanalyzed an existing dataset from which deployed a similar detection paradigm involving hand and eye reports. In the four paradigm variants tested, we again only found anecdotal evidence for the effect of report modality on psychophysical sensitivity. Both studies reported here provide only anecdotal evidence; thus, whether we can replicate report-dependent perceptual effects still needs to be resolved. We argue why this remains an important question for consciousness research and why it deserves more rigorous and high-powered replication attempts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oliver J. Hulme
- Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Copenhagen University Hospital Amager and Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark
- London Mathematical Laboratory, London, United Kingdom
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | | | - Morten Overgaard
- CNRU, Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
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Zher-Wen, Yu R. Unconscious integration: Current evidence for integrative processing under subliminal conditions. Br J Psychol 2023; 114:430-456. [PMID: 36689339 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12631] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2022] [Accepted: 01/05/2023] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
Integrative processing is traditionally believed to be dependent on consciousness. While earlier studies within the last decade reported many types of integration under subliminal conditions (i.e. without perceptual awareness), these findings are widely challenged recently. This review evaluates the current evidence for 10 types of subliminal integration that are widely studied: arithmetic processing, object-context integration, multi-word processing, same-different processing, multisensory integration and 5 different types of associative learning. Potential methodological issues concerning awareness measures are also taken into account. It is concluded that while there is currently no reliable evidence for subliminal integration, this does not necessarily refute 'unconscious' integration defined through non-subliminal (e.g. implicit) approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zher-Wen
- Department of Management, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China.,Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore City, Singapore
| | - Rongjun Yu
- Department of Management, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China
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Chiarella SG, Simione L, D'Angiò M, Raffone A, Di Pace E. The mechanisms of selective attention in phenomenal consciousness. Conscious Cogn 2023; 107:103446. [PMID: 36508897 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2022] [Revised: 10/15/2022] [Accepted: 11/18/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
In three experiments we investigated the effects of selective attention in iconic memory and fragile-visual short-term memory (VSTM), which have been related to phenomenal consciousness. We used a novel retro-cue paradigm with different delays (early vs late) and object priorities (high vs equal vs low), to investigate (a) attentional costs and benefits and the role of (b) bottom-up factors and (c) fragile-VSTM in feature-based attentional selection. Experiment 1 showed that attentional costs modulate visual maintenance at longer delays, while Experiment 2 showed that by reducing the time exposure of the memory array from 250 ms to 100 ms, as a bottom-up factor, participants were not able to select the objects based on their priorities. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that a pattern mask presented before the transfer in visual working memory, attenuates the overall performance while preserving the priority effect. The implications for phenomenal consciousness before conscious access are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Salvatore G Chiarella
- Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Psychology, Rome, Italy; Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC), National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy.
| | - Luca Simione
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC), National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy
| | - Monia D'Angiò
- Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Psychology, Rome, Italy
| | - Antonino Raffone
- Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Psychology, Rome, Italy; ECONA, Interuniversity Center, Rome, Italy; School of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy, and Comparative Religions, Nalanda University, Rajgir, India
| | - Enrico Di Pace
- Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Psychology, Rome, Italy
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Dellert T, Krebs S, Bruchmann M, Schindler S, Peters A, Straube T. Neural correlates of consciousness in an attentional blink paradigm with uncertain target relevance. Neuroimage 2022; 264:119679. [PMID: 36220535 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119679] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2022] [Revised: 09/22/2022] [Accepted: 10/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Several event-related potentials (ERPs) have been proposed as neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), most prominently the early visual awareness negativity (VAN) and the late P3b component. Highly influential support for the P3b comes from studies utilizing the attentional blink (AB), where conscious perception of a first visual target (T1) impairs reporting a second target (T2) presented shortly afterwards. Recent no-report studies using other paradigms suggest that the P3b component may reflect post-perceptual processes associated with decision-making rather than awareness. However, no-report studies are limited in their awareness assessment, and their conclusions have not been tested in an AB paradigm. The present study (N = 38) addressed these issues using a novel AB paradigm, which reduced decision-making processes by omitting a discrimination task on T2 stimuli and rendering their relevance uncertain. Nevertheless, awareness was assessed trial by trial. Comparing ERPs in response to seen versus unseen T2 stimuli revealed a VAN but no enhanced P3b regardless of whether they were marked as distinct from distractor stimuli or not. Our results corroborate the VAN and challenge the P3b as NCC despite rigorous trial-by-trial assessment of conscious perception. Thus, they support the idea that awareness emerges during early sensory processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Torge Dellert
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149, Münster, Germany.
| | - Sophie Krebs
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany
| | - Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149, Münster, Germany
| | - Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149, Münster, Germany
| | - Antje Peters
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149, Münster, Germany
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster, Fliednerstr. 21, 48149, Münster, Germany
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Ammalainen A, Moroshkina N. Where Does Eureka Come From? The Effect of Unreportable Hints on the Phenomenology of Insight. J Intell 2022; 10:110. [PMID: 36412790 PMCID: PMC9703963 DOI: 10.3390/jintelligence10040110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Revised: 11/07/2022] [Accepted: 11/17/2022] [Indexed: 06/24/2024] Open
Abstract
Insight interests researchers given its special cognitive mechanisms and phenomenology (an Aha! experience or Eureka moment). There is a considerable amount of research on the effect of hints on performance in insight problem solving. However, only a few studies address the effect of hints on the subjective experiences of solvers, and the picture their results provide is unclear. We analyze the effect of unreportable true and false hints on different dimensions of the Aha! experience (subjective suddenness, Aha! experience as an effect, and certainty). Using the processing fluency framework, we predict that true hints lead to more insights and stronger Aha! experience and certainty, while false hints lead to the opposite results due to the controlled inhibition of the inappropriate representation. The results showed that false hints decreased the chance of finding a correct solution. The true-hint condition did not lead to more correct solutions but made solutions feel sudden more often than the control condition. The ratings of the Aha! experience and certainty were higher for solutions obtained after true hints than after false hints. We obtained partial support for the effect of unreportable hints on "Eureka!" moments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Artur Ammalainen
- Laboratory for Cognitive Research, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 119571 Moscow, Russia
| | - Nadezhda Moroshkina
- Institute for Cognitive Studies, Saint Petersburg State University, 199034 Saint Petersburg, Russia
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Cheng T. Book Review. Biosystems 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2022.104733] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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