scholarly journals The Perceptual Awareness Scale—recent controversies and debates

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Overgaard ◽  
Kristian Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Alternative Measures ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Theoretical Developments

Abstract Accurate insight into subjective experience is crucial for the science of consciousness. The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) was created in 2004 as a method for obtaining precise introspective reports for participants in research projects, and since then, the scale has become increasingly popular. This does not mean, of course, that no critiques have been voiced. Here, we briefly recapitulate our main thoughts on the intended PAS usage and the findings of the first decade, and we update this with the latest empirical and theoretical developments. We focus specifically on findings with relevance to whether consciousness is gradual or all-or-none phenomenon, to what should be considered conscious/unconscious, and to whether PAS is preferable to alternative measures of awareness. We respond in detail to some recent, selected articles.

scholarly journals Pain Detection and the Privacy of Subjective Experience

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 433-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam J. Kolber
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Medical Evidence ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
Pain Symptoms ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Neuroimaging Techniques

A neurologist with abdominal pain goes to see a gastroenterologist for treatment. The gastroenterologist asks the neurologist where it hurts. The neurologist replies, “In my head, of course.” Indeed, while we can feel pain throughout much of our bodies, pain signals undergo most of their processing in the brain. Using neuroimaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (“fMRI”) and positron emission tomography (“PET”), researchers have more precisely identified brain regions that enable us to experience physical pain. Certain regions of the brain's cortex, for example, increase in activation when subjects are exposed to painful stimuli. Furthermore, the amount of activation increases with the intensity of the painful stimulus. These findings suggest that we may be able to gain insight into the amount of pain a particular person is experiencing by non-invasively imaging his brain.Such insight could be particularly valuable in the courtroom where we often have no definitive medical evidence to prove or disprove claims about the existence and extent of pain symptoms.

scholarly journals Awareness and Integration: Understanding the Challenges of Inferring Multisensory Integration Outside of Awareness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Daniel Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Visual Masking ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Visual Speech ◽  
Emotional Prosody ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Spatial Cueing

<p>Multisensory integration describes the cognitive processes by which information from various perceptual domains is combined to create coherent percepts. For consciously aware perception, multisensory integration can be inferred when information in one perceptual domain influences subjective experience in another. Yet the relationship between integration and awareness is not well understood. One current question is whether multisensory integration can occur in the absence of perceptual awareness. Because there is subjective experience for unconscious perception, researchers have had to develop novel tasks to infer integration indirectly. For instance, Palmer and Ramsey (2012) presented auditory recordings of spoken syllables alongside videos of faces speaking either the same or different syllables, while masking the videos to prevent visual awareness. The conjunction of matching voices and faces predicted the location of a subsequent Gabor grating (target) on each trial. Participants indicated the location/orientation of the target more accurately when it appeared in the cued location (80% chance), thus the authors inferred that auditory and visual speech events were integrated in the absence of visual awareness. In this thesis, I investigated whether these findings generalise to the integration of auditory and visual expressions of emotion. In Experiment 1, I presented spatially informative cues in which congruent facial and vocal emotional expressions predicted the target location, with and without visual masking. I found no evidence of spatial cueing in either awareness condition. To investigate the lack of spatial cueing, in Experiment 2, I repeated the task with aware participants only, and had half of those participants explicitly report the emotional prosody. A significant spatial-cueing effect was found only when participants reported emotional prosody, suggesting that audiovisual congruence can cue spatial attention during aware perception. It remains unclear whether audiovisual congruence can cue spatial attention without awareness, and whether such effects genuinely imply multisensory integration.</p>

In sickness and in health: The strains and gains of caring for a chronically ill or disabled spouse

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria L Solomi ◽  
Rachel E Casiday
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Marital Relationship ◽  
Chronically Ill ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Relational Experiences ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Insight Into

Objectives To examine the subjective experiences of spousal carers, focusing on positive, negative, and relational aspects of this role. Methods Mixed-methods exploratory study involving questionnaires ( N = 40) and in-depth interviews ( N = 8) with spousal carers in the southwest of England. Results Participants used a combination of negative and positive terms to describe their experiences, with the cared-for spouse's mental acuity, behavior towards the carer, and amount of care required, impacting on carers' subjective experience. Women were more likely to report neglecting their own health because of being a carer ( p = 0.02). The marital relationship itself was highly significant, and many carers took special measures to maintain and develop their marital bonds. Carers adapted to their roles in various ways, with those finding acceptance of their situation and accessing support appearing to cope best with the demands of the role. Discussion This study, though based on a small and geographically restricted sample, offers insight into the positive, negative, and relational experiences of spousal carers. Support that encourages carers to engage in health-promoting activities, and ideally provides opportunities for both partners to be involved in such activities together, may be particularly beneficial.

The Subjective Experience of Patients who Received Electroconvulsive Therapy

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Frank Koopowitz ◽  
Leslie Frank Koopowitz ◽  
Anna Chur-Hansen ◽  
Sally Reid ◽  
Miriam Blashki
Keyword(s):  
Electroconvulsive Therapy ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cognitive Effects ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Framework Approach ◽  
Positive Experiences ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Future Treatment Option

Objective: Despite the vast amount of scientific literature available on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), there is little qualitative focus upon the patients' subjective experience of this procedure. Using an exploratory descriptive methodology, this study aims to provide a more unique insight into what certain patients actually think of ECT. Method: Semistructured interviews were conducted to explore eight patients' opinions and experiences of ECT. Interviews were subjected to analysis by a five-step framework approach that identified prominent themes in relation to five broad questions and in conjunction with issues raised by the subjects themselves. Results: Eleven major themes were identified. Four of these were chosen for discussion, not only as the most prevalent themes (in terms of how frequently they were mentioned by the subjects), but also as the most striking (in regards to the intensity of emotions evoked, or their influence on their perception of ECT as a future treatment option). The four themes are fear of ECT, attribution of cognitive decline and memory loss to ECT, positive ECT experiences, and patients' suggestions. Conclusions: Using such a qualitative approach, the depth of the information obtained has revealed new perspectives on how patients perceive the experience of ECT. Fears reported by patients present an opportunity to address specific areas of the procedure that generate the most angst. These were closely associated with recommendations that many patients proposed throughout the interviews. Patients' perceptions of the cognitive effects of ECT do not necessarily correspond with those commonly reported in the literature on ECT. Positive experiences with ECT were more complex than simply its efficacy. There is a need for future research in order to explore and address patients' experiences of ECT.

scholarly journals “So, it is about how negative it is?!” Understanding researcher/researched interactions as relations between intersectional social positions

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sune Qvotrup Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Minority Men ◽  
Powerful Mechanism ◽  
Insight Into

The article argues that interactions in qualitative interviews and ethnography can be analyzed as relations between intersectional social positions. It draws attention to the importance of class and geographical location in such analysis. It further argues that such interactions work through typifications, that they have a power dimension and that they entail processes of identity formation. The identities being offered through these processes can, however, be negotiated or resisted. The article then analyses such interactions as they were experienced in two research projects the author participated in: His PhD project about young marginalized ethnic minority men, and the collective project INTERLOC which focused on the interplay between gender, class, ethnicity and ‘race’ in an underprivileged Danish suburb. It is demonstrated that relationality influences the assumptions research participants have about the researcher. It is also demonstrated that the research encounter entails powerful mechanism of identity formation. The informants, however, sometimes resist these processes resulting in blurred and unstable, sometimes antagonistic, power relations. It is finally argued that analyses of such interactions can provide central insight into the subject studied.

scholarly journals Imagination and cinema: the notion of anthropos from the figure of the spectator

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ignacio Riffo ◽  
Rubén Dittus
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Cornelius Castoriadis ◽  
The Spectator

The present work is presented as an approach between the notion of the imaginary with the theory of the film viewer, formulated in 1956 by Edgar Morin, in his classic text The cinema or the imaginary man and enlarged by Francesco Casetti with the thesis of the enunciation in the cinema. In this way, the main objective of this article is to capture theoretical bases from the reflection of both conceptualizations. Thus, this initiatory work aims to be an epistemological contribution to future research projects. For this, at the methodological level, an initial theoretical path is developed that has its anchor -and its respective critical reading- in the contributions of Gilbert Durand and Cornelius Castoriadis, in the permanent concern of both for “drawing” those elements inherent in anthropos that allow the construction of their historical-social environment from subjectivity. The latter conceived as intrinsic peculiarity to the human being. It is concluded that through an artificial-imaginary state the viewer feels close and is able to recognize the reality of the images that the big screen offers him, coming into direct contact with his fantasies, fears and dreams. In other words, here the double dimension of the film is observed as an artifact and as a subjective experience.

scholarly journals Towards a view from within: On the scientific study of consciousness and the contribution of Francisco Varela

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renzo Carlo Lanfranco ◽  
Andrés Canales-Johnson ◽  
Boris Lucero ◽  
Valdas Noreika
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Gamma Band ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Neural Marker ◽  
Comprehensive Manner

The contents of consciousness are complex and dynamic, presenting in most perceptual and cognitive functions. The study of consciousness and subjective experience has been central to philosophy for centuries. However, despite its relevance for understanding cognition and behaviour, the empirical study of consciousness is relatively new, embroiled by the seemingly opposing subjective and objective sources of data. Francisco Varela (1946 – 2001) pioneered the empirical study of consciousness by developing novel and rich approaches in a non-reductive and comprehensive manner. In this article, we review the main conceptual distinctions, properties, problems, and theories of consciousness, and highlight the main contributions of Varela and his associates: the development of neurophenomenology as a methodological framework that builds a bridge between subjective and objective sources of data, and the discovery of gamma-band phase synchronisation as a neural marker of perceptual awareness.

scholarly journals Should a few null findings falsify prefrontal theories of conscious perception?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Odegaard ◽  
Robert T. Knight ◽  
Hakwan Lau
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
Common Misconceptions ◽  
Limited Sensitivity

AbstractIs activity in prefrontal cortex (PFC) critical for conscious perception? Major theories of consciousness make distinct predictions about the role of PFC, providing an opportunity to arbitrate between these views empirically. Here we address three common misconceptions: i) PFC lesions do not affect subjective perception; ii) PFC activity does not reflect specific perceptual content; iii) PFC involvement in studies of perceptual awareness is solely driven by the need to make reports required by the experimental tasks, rather than subjective experience per se. These claims are incompatible with empirical findings, unless one focuses only on studies using methods with limited sensitivity. The literature highlights PFC’s essential role in enabling the subjective experience in perception, contra the objective capacity to perform visual tasks; conflating the two can also be a source of confusion.

scholarly journals Rapid neural categorization of facelike objects predicts the perceptual awareness of a face (face pareidolia)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Rekow ◽  
Jean-Yves Baudouin ◽  
Renaud Brochard ◽  
Bruno Rossion ◽  
Arnaud Leleu
Keyword(s):  
Face Perception ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
List Type ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Face Categorization ◽  
Illusory Perception ◽  
Neural Signature ◽  
Scalp Electroencephalogram ◽  
Human Faces

AbstractThe human brain rapidly and automatically categorizes faces vs. other visual objects. However, whether face-selective neural activity predicts the subjective experience of a face – perceptual awareness – is debated. To clarify this issue, here we use face pareidolia, i.e., the illusory perception of a face, as a proxy to relate the neural categorization of a variety of facelike objects to conscious face perception. In Experiment 1, scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) is recorded while pictures of human faces or facelike objects – in different stimulation sequences – are interleaved every second (i.e., at 1 Hz) in a rapid 6-Hz train of natural images of nonface objects. Participants do not perform any explicit face categorization task during stimulation, and report whether they perceived illusory faces post-stimulation. A robust categorization response to facelike objects is identified at 1 Hz and harmonics in the EEG frequency spectrum with a facelike occipito-temporal topography. Across all individuals, the facelike categorization response is of about 20% of the response to human faces, but more strongly right-lateralized. Critically, its amplitude is much larger in participants who report having perceived illusory faces. In Experiment 2, facelike or matched nonface objects from the same categories appear at 1 Hz in sequences of nonface objects presented at variable stimulation rates (60 Hz to 12 Hz) and participants explicitly report after each sequence whether they perceived illusory faces. The facelike categorization response already emerges at the shortest stimulus duration (i.e., 17 ms at 60 Hz) and predicts the behavioral report of conscious perception. Strikingly, neural facelike-selectivity emerges exclusively when participants report illusory faces. Collectively, these experiments characterize a neural signature of face pareidolia in the context of rapid categorization, supporting the view that face-selective brain activity reliably predicts the subjective experience of a face from a single glance at a variety of stimuli.Highlights- EEG frequency-tagging measures the rapid categorization of facelike objects- Facelike objects elicit a facelike neural categorization response- Neural face categorization predicts conscious face perception across variable inputs

scholarly journals Through the Interviewer's Lens: Representations of 1960s Households and Families in a Lost Sociological Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Goodwin ◽  
Henrietta O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Young Worker ◽  
The Other ◽  
Young Workers ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
Workplace Experiences ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Insight Into

In this paper we aim to use the interviewer notes from a lost sociological project (The Young Worker Project) to answer two broad, interrelated, questions: i) how was family life documented and represented by the researchers in their interviewer notes and ii) what does analysing interviewer notes in this way add to our understanding of families and households? The answers to these questions are considered in the context of a further question – why did the young worker research contain so much data on families and households when the research was concerned with young workers’ early workplace experiences? In answering these questions we offer some insight into family life in the 1960s as documented by the researchers and locate Norbert Elias's young worker research within the context of the other large sociology research projects being undertaken at the time.

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