scholarly journals Conscious Perception: Time for an Update?

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moti Salti ◽  
Asaf Harel ◽  
Sébastien Marti
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Stimulus Saliency ◽  
Perception Time

Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying conscious perception has become a central endeavor in cognitive neuroscience. In theories of conscious perception, a stimulus gaining conscious access is usually considered as a discrete neuronal event to be characterized in time or space, sometimes referred to as a conscious “episode.” Surprisingly, the alternative hypothesis according to which conscious perception is a dynamic process has rarely been considered. Here, we discuss this hypothesis and its implications. We show how it can reconcile inconsistent empirical findings on the timing of the neural correlates of consciousness and make testable predictions. According to this hypothesis, a stimulus is consciously perceived for as long as it is recoded to fit an ongoing stream composed of all other perceived stimuli. We suggest that this “updating” process is governed by at least three factors (1) context, (2) stimulus saliency, and (3) observers' goals. Finally, this framework forces us to reconsider the typical distinction between conscious and unconscious information processing.

Binocular rivalry and emotion: Implications for neural correlates of consciousness and emotional biases in conscious perception

Cortex ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 539-555
Author(s):  
María Hernández-Lorca ◽  
Kristian Sandberg ◽  
Dominique Kessel ◽  
Uxía Fernández-Folgueiras ◽  
Morten Overgaard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness

scholarly journals Human Empathy Through the Lens of Social Neuroscience

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1146-1163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Decety ◽  
Claus Lamm
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
The Self ◽  
Neural Systems

Empathy is the ability to experience and understand what others feel without confusion between oneself and others. Knowing what someone else is feeling plays a fundamental role in interpersonal interactions. In this paper, we articulate evidence from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, and argue that empathy involves both emotion sharing (bottom-up information processing) and executive control to regulate and modulate this experience (top-down information processing), underpinned by specific and interacting neural systems. Furthermore, awareness of a distinction between the experiences of the self and others constitutes a crucial aspect of empathy. We discuss data from recent behavioral and functional neuroimaging studies with an emphasis on the perception of pain in others, and highlight the role of different neural mechanisms that underpin the experience of empathy, including emotion sharing, perspective taking, and emotion regulation.

Global-workspace theory

2019 ◽  
pp. 96-115
Author(s):  
Peter Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Global Workspace Theory

The present chapter outlines and defends the empirical case supporting global-workspace theory as the best account of the functional/neural correlates of consciousness, at least. The chapter explains the theoretical background to global-workspace theory and the evidence that supports it. It shows how the theory is well-supported by raft of findings in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, as well as by recent experiments tracking conscious contents in the brain. The chapter also replies to a variety of critiques and alleged forms of counter-evidence. It concludes by considering whether the fact that much of this evidence has been collected in work with nonhuman animals begs the consciousness-question that forms our topic (arguing that it does not).

scholarly journals You can't always get what you want

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Schlicht ◽  
Krzysztof Dolega
Keyword(s):  
Computational Models ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Processing Framework

The predictive processing framework has gained significant popularity across disciplines investigating the mind and brain. In this article we critically examine two of the recently made claims about the kind of headway that the framework can make in the neuroscientific and philosophical investigation of consciousness. Firstly, we argue that predictive processing is unlikely to yield significant breakthroughs in the search for the neural correlates of consciousness as it is still too vague to individuate neural mechanisms at a fine enough scale. Despite its unifying ambitions, the framework harbors a diverse family of competing computational models which rely on different assumptions and are under-constrained by neurological data. Secondly, we argue that the framework is also ill suited to provide a unifying theory of consciousness. Here, we focus on the tension between the claim that predictive processing is compatible with all of the leading neuroscientific models of consciousness with the fact that most attempts explaining consciousness within the framework rely heavily on external assumptions.

A social psychologist illuminates cognition

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 673-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Raz ◽  
Kim L. Norman
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Social Psychologist ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
Post Hoc

Sprinkled with humor, social psychology illuminates cognition in Wegner's beautifully written and cleverly crafted book. However, scantily exploiting such themes as psychopathology, development, and neural correlates of consciousness, Wegner's account does not fully project into cognitive neuroscience. Broaching the topic of self-regulation, we outline neurocognitive data supplementing the notion that voluntariness is perhaps more post hoc ascriptions than bona fide introspection.

scholarly journals Temporal Dynamics of Neural Activity at the Moment of Emergence of Conscious Percept

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 1983-1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuki Noguchi ◽  
Takemasa Yokoyama ◽  
Megumi Suzuki ◽  
Shinichi Kita ◽  
Ryusuke Kakigi
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Ventral Pathway ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Brain

From which regions of the brain do conscious representations of visual stimuli emerge? This is an important but controversial issue in neuroscience because some studies have reported a major role of the higher visual regions of the ventral pathway in conscious perception, whereas others have found neural correlates of consciousness as early as in the primary visual areas and in the thalamus. One reason for this controversy has been the difficulty in focusing on neural activity at the moment when conscious percepts are generated in the brain, excluding any bottom–up responses (not directly related to consciousness) that are induced by stimuli. In this study, we address this issue with a new approach that can induce a rapid change in conscious perception with little influence from bottom–up responses. Our results reveal that the first consciousness-related activity emerges from the higher visual region of the ventral pathway. However, this activity is rapidly diffused to the entire brain, including the early visual cortex. These results thus integrate previous “higher” and “lower” views on the emergence of neural correlates of consciousness, providing a new perspective for the temporal dynamics of consciousness.

Neural Correlates of Syntactic Processing in Two-Year-Olds

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 1667-1678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regine Oberecker ◽  
Manuela Friedrich ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Early Language Development ◽  
First Pass ◽  
Anterior Negativity

Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of sentence processing in adults have shown that phrase-structure violations are associated with two ERP components: an early left anterior negativity (ELAN) and a late, centro-parietal positivity (P600). Although the ELAN reflects highly automatic first-pass sentence parsing, the P600 has been interpreted to reflect later, more controlled processes. The present ERP study investigates the processing of phrase-structure violations in children below three years of age. Both children (mean age of 2.8 years) and adults passively listened to short active sentences that were either correct or syntactically incorrect. Adults displayed an ELAN that was followed by a P600 to the syntactic violation. Children also demonstrated a biphasic ERP pattern consisting of an early left hemispheric negativity and a late positivity. Both components, however, started later and persisted longer than those observed in adults. The left lateralization of the children's negativity suggests that this component can be interpreted as a child-specific precursor to the ELAN observed in adults. The appearance of the early negativity indicates that the neural mechanisms of syntactic parsing are present, in principle, during early language development.

scholarly journals Can binocular rivalry reveal neural correlates of consciousness?

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1641) ◽  
pp. 20130211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Blake ◽  
Jan Brascamp ◽  
David J. Heeger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Neural Dynamics ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Neural Correlate ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Neural Correlate Of Consciousness

This essay critically examines the extent to which binocular rivalry can provide important clues about the neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Our ideas are presented within the framework of four questions about the use of rivalry for this purpose: (i) what constitutes an adequate comparison condition for gauging rivalry's impact on awareness, (ii) how can one distinguish abolished awareness from inattention, (iii) when one obtains unequivocal evidence for a causal link between a fluctuating measure of neural activity and fluctuating perceptual states during rivalry, will it generalize to other stimulus conditions and perceptual phenomena and (iv) does such evidence necessarily indicate that this neural activity constitutes a neural correlate of consciousness? While arriving at sceptical answers to these four questions, the essay nonetheless offers some ideas about how a more nuanced utilization of binocular rivalry may still provide fundamental insights about neural dynamics, and glimpses of at least some of the ingredients comprising neural correlates of consciousness, including those involved in perceptual decision-making.

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