scholarly journals Neurophenomenology of induced and natural synaesthesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1787) ◽  
pp. 20190030 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Schwartzman ◽  
Daniel Bor ◽  
Nicolas Rothen ◽  
Anil K. Seth
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Perceptual Presence ◽  
Congenital Condition ◽  
Standing Question

People with synaesthesia have additional perceptual experiences, which are automatically and consistently triggered by specific inducing stimuli. Synaesthesia therefore offers a unique window into the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying conscious perception. A long-standing question in synaesthesia research is whether it is possible to artificially induce non-synaesthetic individuals to have synaesthesia-like experiences. Although synaesthesia is widely considered a congenital condition, increasing evidence points to the potential of a variety of approaches to induce synaesthesia-like experiences, even in adulthood. Here, we summarize a range of methods for artificially inducing synaesthesia-like experiences, comparing the resulting experiences to the key hallmarks of natural synaesthesia which include consistency, automaticity and a lack of ‘perceptual presence’. We conclude that a number of aspects of synaesthesia can be artificially induced in non-synaesthetes. These data suggest the involvement of developmental and/or learning components in the acquisition of synaesthesia, and they extend previous reports of perceptual plasticity leading to dramatic changes in perceptual phenomenology in adults. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.

How Socially Relevant Visual Characteristics of Avatars Influence Impression Formation

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Weibel ◽  
Daniel Stricker ◽  
Bartholomäus Wissmath ◽  
Fred W. Mast
Keyword(s):  
Impression Formation ◽  
Pupil Size ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Viewing Angle ◽  
Frontal View ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
First Impression ◽  
Visual Characteristics ◽  
Socially Relevant ◽  
Blink Frequency

Like in the real world, the first impression a person leaves in a computer-mediated environment depends on his or her online appearance. The present study manipulates an avatar’s pupil size, eyeblink frequency, and the viewing angle to investigate whether nonverbal visual characteristics are responsible for the impression made. We assessed how participants (N = 56) evaluate these avatars in terms of different attributes. The findings show that avatars with large pupils and slow eye blink frequency are perceived as more sociable and more attractive. Compared to avatars seen in full frontal view or from above, avatars seen from below were rated as most sociable, self-confident, and attractive. Moreover, avatars’ pupil size and eyeblink frequency escape the viewer’s conscious perception but still influence how people evaluate them. The findings have wide-ranging applied implications for avatar design.

Pablo Neruda's Transnational Modernist Networks: Colombo-Madrid-London-Buenos Aires (1927–1933)

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-225
Author(s):  
Patricia Novillo-Corvalán
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Complex Composition ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The One ◽  
Composition Process ◽  
In Transit ◽  
Standing Question

This article positions Pablo Neruda's poetry collection Residence on Earth I (written between 1925–1931 and published in 1933) as a ‘text in transit’ that allows us to trace the development of transnational modernist networks through the text's protracted physical journey from British colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to Madrid, and from José Ortega y Gasset's Revista de Occidente (The Western Review) to T. S. Eliot's The Criterion. By mapping the text's diasporic movement, I seek to reinterpret its complex composition process as part of an anti-imperialist commitment that proposes a form of aesthetic solidarity with artistic modernism in Ceylon, on the one hand, and as a vehicle through which to interrogate the reception and categorisation of Latin American writers and their cultural institutions in a British periodical such as The Criterion, on the other. I conclude with an examination of Neruda's idiosyncratic Spanish translation of Joyce's Chamber Music, which was published in the Buenos Aires little magazine Poesía in 1933, positing that this translation exercise takes to further lengths his decolonising views by giving new momentum to the long-standing question of Hiberno-Latin American relations.

Consciousness, Metacognition, & Perceptual Reality Monitoring

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hakwan Lau
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Order Theory ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Belief Formation ◽  
Reality Monitoring ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Brute Fact ◽  
Higher Order Theory ◽  
Subjective Level

I introduce an empirically-grounded version of a higher-order theory of conscious perception. Traditionally, theories of consciousness either focus on the global availability of conscious information, or take conscious phenomenology as a brute fact due to some biological or basic representational properties. Here I argue instead that the key to characterizing the consciousness lies in its connections to belief formation and epistemic justification on a subjective level.

Intentionalism, Cognition, and Representation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Christopher Maloney
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Perceptual State ◽  
Content Of Experience

This chapter continues consideration of reductive intentionalism without embracing the doctrine, framing it in the context of cognitive science. Cognition, including perception, is representation. An agent’s cognitive, perhaps perceptual, state is a relation binding the agent to a proposition by means of her mental representation. Intentionalism would explicate the phenomenal character of a perceiver's experience in terms of the content of her prevailing perceptual representation. While minimal intentionalism maintains that the phenomenal character of the perceiver's experience merely supervenes on her representation's content, maximal intentionalism would reduce character to content. For maximal intentionalism maintains that phenomenal character is simply what introspection finds. Yet, according to maximal intentionalism, introspection, when tuned to conscious perception, detects only the content of experience. Hence, the maximalist identifies phenomenal character with the content carried by perceptual representation.

Imaginative Presence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Kind
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Perceptual Presence

When looking at an object, we perceive only its facing surface, yet we nonetheless perceptually experience the object as a three-dimensional whole. This gives us what Alva Noë has called the problem of perceptual presence, i.e. the problem of accounting for the features of our perceptual experience that are present as absent. Although he proposes that we can best solve this problem by adopting an enactive view of perception, one according to which perceptual presence is to be explained in terms of the exercise of our sensorimotor capacities, this chapter argues that this is a mistake. Rather, we can best account for presence in absence in terms of the exercise of our imaginative capacities.

Chemo- and Optogenetic Strategies for the Elucidation of Pain Pathways

2019 ◽  
pp. 816-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha R. A. Alles ◽  
Anne-Marie Malfait ◽  
Richard J. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Pain Response ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Novel Therapies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nociceptive Pathways ◽  
Pain Pathways ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
The Brain

Pain is not a simple phenomenon and, beyond its conscious perception, involves circuitry that allows the brain to provide an affective context for nociception, which can influence mood and memory. In the past decade, neurobiological techniques have been developed that allow investigators to elucidate the importance of particular groups of neurons in different aspects of the pain response, something that may have important translational implications for the development of novel therapies. Chemo- and optogenetics represent two of the most important technical advances of recent times for gaining understanding of physiological circuitry underlying complex behaviors. The use of these techniques for teasing out the role of neurons and glia in nociceptive pathways is a rapidly growing area of research. The major findings of studies focused on understanding circuitry involved in different aspects of nociception and pain are highlighted in this article. In addition, attention is drawn to the possibility of modification of chemo- and optogenetic techniques for use as potential therapies for treatment of chronic pain disorders in human patients.

scholarly journals Ophthalmological findings in children with non-syndromic craniosynostosis: preoperatively and postoperatively up to 12 months after surgery

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. e000677
Author(s):  
Evangelia Ntoula ◽  
Daniel Nowinski ◽  
Gerd Holmstrom ◽  
Eva Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
University Hospital ◽  
Cranial Sutures ◽  
Sagittal Craniosynostosis ◽  
Syndromic Craniosynostosis ◽  
Disc Oedema ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Congenital Condition ◽  
Skull Deformity

AimsCraniosynostosis is a congenital condition characterised by premature fusion of one or more cranial sutures. The aim of this study was to analyse ophthalmic function before and after cranial surgery, in children with various types of non-syndromic craniosynostosis.MethodsChildren referred to Uppsala University Hospital for surgery of non-syndromic craniosynostosis were examined preoperatively. Visual acuity was measured with Preferential Looking tests or observation of fixation and following. Strabismus and eye motility were noted. Refraction was measured in cycloplegia and funduscopy was performed. Follow-up examinations were performed 6–12 months postoperatively at the children’s local hospitals.ResultsOne hundred twenty-two children with mean age 6.2 months were examined preoperatively. Refractive values were similar between the different subtypes of craniosynostosis, except for astigmatism anisometropia which was more common in unicoronal craniosynostosis. Strabismus was found in seven children, of which four had unicoronal craniosynostosis.Postoperatively, 113 children were examined, at mean age 15.9 months. The refractive values decreased, except for astigmatism and anisometropia in unicoronal craniosynostosis. Strabismus remained in unicoronal craniosynostosis. Two new cases with strabismus developed in unicoronal craniosynostosis and one in metopic, all operated with fronto-orbital techniques. No child had disc oedema or pale discs preoperatively or postoperatively.ConclusionOphthalmic dysfunctions were not frequent in children with sagittal craniosynostosis and preoperative ophthalmological evaluation may not be imperative. Children with unicoronal craniosynostosis had the highest prevalence of strabismus and anisometropia. Fronto-orbital techniques used to address skull deformity may be related to a higher prevalence of strabismus postoperatively.

scholarly journals Conscious perception and perceptual echoes: a binocular rivalry study

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Canhuang Luo ◽  
Rufin VanRullen ◽  
Andrea Alamia
Keyword(s):  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Travelling Wave ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Impulse Response Functions ◽  
Band Frequency ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract Alpha rhythms (∼10Hz) in the human brain are classically associated with idling activities, being predominantly observed during quiet restfulness with closed eyes. However, recent studies demonstrated that alpha (∼10Hz) rhythms can directly relate to visual stimulation, resulting in oscillations, which can last for as long as one second. This alpha reverberation, dubbed perceptual echoes (PE), suggests that the visual system actively samples and processes visual information within the alpha-band frequency. Although PE have been linked to various visual functions, their underlying mechanisms and functional role are not completely understood. In this study, we investigated the relationship between conscious perception and the generation and the amplitude of PE. Specifically, we displayed two coloured Gabor patches with different orientations on opposite sides of the screen, and using a set of dichoptic mirrors, we induced a binocular rivalry between the two stimuli. We asked participants to continuously report which one of two Gabor patches they consciously perceived, while recording their EEG signals. Importantly, the luminance of each patch fluctuated randomly over time, generating random sequences from which we estimated two impulse-response functions (IRFs) reflecting the PE generated by the perceived (dominant) and non-perceived (suppressed) stimulus, respectively. We found that the alpha power of the PE generated by the consciously perceived stimulus was comparable with that of the PE generated during monocular vision (control condition) and higher than the PE induced by the suppressed stimulus. Moreover, confirming previous findings, we found that all PEs propagated as a travelling wave from posterior to frontal brain regions, irrespective of conscious perception. All in all our results demonstrate a correlation between conscious perception and PE, suggesting that the synchronization of neural activity plays an important role in visual sampling and conscious perception.

scholarly journals Meditating in Virtual Reality 3: 360° Video of Perceptual Presence of Instructor

Mindfulness ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madison Waller ◽  
Divya Mistry ◽  
Rakesh Jetly ◽  
Paul Frewen
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Perceptual Presence
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