It has been argued that attention and awareness might oppose each other given that attending to an adapting stimulus weakens its afterimage. We argue instead that the type of attention guided by the spread of attention and the level of processing is critical and might result in differences in awareness using afterimages. Participants performed a central task with small, large, local or global letters and a blue square as an adapting stimulus in two experiments and indicated the onset and offset (...) of the afterimage. We found that increases in the spatial spread of attention resulted in the decrease of afterimage duration. In terms of levels of processing, global processing produced larger afterimage durations with stimuli controlled for spatial extent. The results suggest that focused or distributed attention produce different effects on awareness, possibly through their differential interactions with polarity dependent and independent processes involved in the formation of color afterimages. (shrink)

Highly divergent accounts exist of the nature of emotional feelings. Following Lambie and Marcel (2002), that divergence is traced back to actual differences in experience that result from variations in the involvement and direction of attention during emotions. The dimensions of variation include first versus second order experience, world- versus self-focus, appraisal or action-readiness focus, and attention mode (synthetic-analytic, immersed-detached). It is argued that the most characteristic form during actual emotional events consists of the more or less immersed and synthetic (...) perception of an emotionally meaningful world or of oneself as emotionally meaningful. Meaning consists of perceived qualities that represent appraisal and action readiness. Although information from one's body is central for all emotion experience, it is not central in all emotion experience. Feeling of the body in a particular state represents detached analytic self-focused awareness only.Emotion experience not only represents a perspective on emotional reactions but also contributes to the constitution of those reactions, notably with respect to attention shifts, action initiation and action guidance, and emotion regulation. It is a major factor in constituting a representation of “self” and in establishing social coherence. (shrink)

Previous studies have explored the effects of attention on spatial representation. Specifically, in the attentional repulsion effect, a transient visual cue that captures attention has been shown to alter the perceived position of a target stimulus to the direction away from the cue. The effect is also susceptible to retrospective influence, that attention appears to attract the target when the cue appears afterwards. This study examined the necessity of visual awareness of the cue in these phenomena. We found that when (...) the cues were rendered invisible by backward visual masks, both repulsion and attraction effects were weakened but still observed. The results suggest that the effects possibly depend on processes that are not necessarily associated with conscious visual awareness of the cues. We conjecture that attentional shift produced by the weak, invisible cues may play a role in spatial distortion; but other possible accounts including non-attentional ones are also discussed. (shrink)

Block makes a case for the existence of conscious experience without access. His case would have been much stronger, however, if he had woven fully unconscious processing into the and considered arguments that are intrinsic to neuroscience.

I here describe meanings attributed to the term consciousness, extracted from the literature and from recent online discussions. Forty such meanings were identified and categorized according to whether they were principally about function or about experience; some overlapped but others were apparently mutually exclusive - and this list is by no means exhaustive. Most can be regarded as expressions of authors' views about the basis of con-sciousness, or opinions about the significance of aspects of its con-tents. The prospects for reaching (...) any single, agreed, theory independent definition of consciousness thus appear remote. How-ever, much confusion could be avoided if authors were always to spec-ify which aspects of consciousness they refer to when using the term. An example is outlined of how this can be done. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to argue for two main and related points. First, I want to defend Richard Wollheim’s well-known thesis that the twofold mental state of seeing-in is the distinctive pictorial experience that marks figurativity. Figurativity is what makes a representation pictorial, a depiction of its subject. Moreover, I want to show that insofar as it is a mark of figurativity, all seeing-in is inflected. That is to say, every mental state of seeing-in is such that the characterisation (...) of the properties by which a certain subject is seen in a given picture as having refers to the design properties of the picture’s vehicle, i.e., to the visible surface properties of that vehicle that are responsible for the fact that one such subject is seen in it, precisely taken in such a design role. Finally, I will try to show that seeing-in is qualified by inflection independently of whether it is conscious or unconscious seeing-in. (shrink)

Contrary to Block's assertion, “identity-crowding” does not provide an interesting instance of object-seeing without object-attention. The successful judgments and unusual phenomenology of identity-crowding are better explained by unconscious perception and non-perceptual phenomenology associated with cognitive states. In identity-crowding, as in other cases of crowding, subjects see jumbled textures and cannot individuate the items contributing to those textures in the absence of attention. Block presents an attenuated sense in which identity-crowded items are seen, but this is irrelevant to the debate about (...) phenomenal experience of an object in the absence of object-attention. Finally, even unconscious object perception in identity-crowding likely involves an attention-like selective process. (shrink)

I give an account of the difference between "Holistic" and "Atomistic" views of conscious experience. On the Holistic view, we enjoy a unified "field" of awareness, whose parts are mere modifications of the whole, and therefore owe their existence to the whole. There is some tendency to saddle those who reject the Holistic field model with a (perhaps) implausible "building block" view. I distinguish a number of different theses about the parts of an experience that are suggested by the "building (...) block" metaphor, but which can be rejected by those who also reject the holistic field view. (shrink)

I am looking at an apple. The apple has a lot of properties and some, but not all, of these are part of my phenomenology at this moment: I am aware of these properties. And some, but not all, of these properties that I am aware of are part of my perceptual (or sensory) phenomenology. If I am attending to the apple’s color, this property will be part of my perceptual phenomenology. The property of being a granny smith apple from (...) Chile is unlikely to be part of my perceptual phenomenology. Here are two problems for anyone who is interested in conscious experience in general, and perceptual experience in particular: (a) How can we tell which properties are part of our phenomenology and which ones are not? (b) How can we tell which properties are part of our perceptual phenomenology and which ones are part of our non-perceptual phenomenology? I will focus on (b) in this paper. My aim is twofold: I propose a methodology for answering the question of which properties are part of our perceptual phenomenology and I provide an example for how this methodology could be applied. (shrink)

One of the most important issues concerning the foundations ofconscious perception centerson thequestion of whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse. The overflow argument uses a form of ‘iconic memory’ toarguethatperceptual consciousnessisricher (i.e.,has a higher capacity) than cognitive access: when observing a complex scene we are conscious of more than we can report or think about. Recently, the overflow argumenthas been challenged both empirically and conceptually. This paper reviews the controversy, arguing that proponents of sparse perception are committed to the (...) postulation of (i) a peculiar kind of generic conscious representation that has no independent rationale and (ii) an unmotivated form of unconscious representation that in some cases conflicts with what we know about unconscious representation. (shrink)

Event-related potential studies have attempted to discover the processes that underlie conscious visual perception by contrasting ERPs produced by stimuli that are consciously perceived with those that are not. Variability of the proposed ERP correlates of consciousness is considerable: the earliest proposed ERP correlate of consciousness coincides with sensory processes and the last one marks postperceptual processes. A negative difference wave called visual awareness negativity , typically observed around 200 ms after stimulus onset in occipitotemporal sites, gains strong support for (...) reflecting the processes that correlate with, and possibly enable, aware visual perception. Research suggests that the early parts of conscious processing can proceed independently of top-down attention, although top-down attention may modulate visual processing even before consciousness. Evidence implies that the contents of consciousness are provided by interactions in the ventral stream, but indispensable contributions from dorsal regions influence already low-level visual responses. (shrink)

Here, we argue that any neurobiological theory based on an experience/function division cannot be empirically confirmed or falsified and is thus outside the scope of science. A ‘perfect experiment’ illustrates this point, highlighting the unbreachable boundaries of the scientific study of consciousness. We describe a more nuanced notion of cognitive access that captures personal experience without positing the existence of inaccessible conscious states. Finally, we discuss the criteria necessary for forming and testing a falsifiable theory of consciousness.

What is the philosophical significance of attention? The present article provides an overview of recent debates surrounding the connections between attention and other topics of philosophical interest. In particular, it discusses the interplay between attention and consciousness, attention and agency, and attention and reference. The article outlines the questions and contemporary positions concerning how attention shapes the phenomenal character of experience, whether it is necessary or sufficient for consciousness, and whether it plays a special role in the best philosophical theories (...) of action or conceptual reference. Various interdependencies between the answers to these questions are indicated, as well as how these answers might depend on the metaphysics of attention. Together with its companion piece this article serves as an introduction to the philosophy of attention. (shrink)

(2013). Does consciousness entail subjectivity? The puzzle of thought insertion. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 291-314. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625117.

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive (...) science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience . From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001. (shrink)

This chapter argues that attention is a distinctive mode of consciousness, which plays an essential functional role in making information accessible for use in the rational control of thought and action. The main line of argument can be stated quite simply. Attention is what makes information fully accessible for use in the rational control of thought and action. But what makes information fully accessible for use in the rational control of thought and action is a distinctive mode of consciousness. Therefore, (...) attention is a distinctive mode of consciousness. In a slogan: attention is rational-access consciousness. (shrink)

Dartnall claims that visual short-term memory stores nonconceptual content , in the form of compressed images. In this paper I argue against the claim that NCC can be stored in VSTM. I offer four reasons why NCC cannot be stored in visual memory and why only conceptual information can: NCC lasts for a very short time and does not reach either visual short-term memory or visual long-term memory; the content of visual states is stored in memory only if and when (...) object-centered attention modulates visual processing and this modulation signifies the onset of the conceptualization of that content; only categorical high-level information that characterizes conceptual content and not metric and precise iconic information that characterizes NCC can be stored in visual memory for long periods; and if NCC were stored in visual memory then this would allow recognitional judgments pertaining to NCC—one could recognize the precise shade of a color that one had seen before. However NCC does not allow such recognitional judgments. (shrink)

Both the global workspace theory and Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, are central in the current debates about consciousness and the neural correlates of consciousness. In this article, a unifying global workspace model for phenomenal and access consciousness is proposed. In the model, recurrent neural interactions take place in distinct yet interacting access and phenomenal brain loops. The effectiveness of feedback signaling onto sensory cortical maps is emphasized for the neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Two forms of top-down (...) attention, attention for perception and attention for access, play differential roles for phenomenal and access consciousness. The model is implemented in a neural network form, with the simulation of single and multiple visual object processing, and of the attentional blink. (shrink)

Dienes and Seth (2010) conclude that confidence ratings and post-decision wagering are two comparable and recommendable measures of conscious experience. In a recently submitted paper, we have however found that both methods are problematic and seem less suited to measure consciousness than a direct introspective measure. Here, we discuss the methodology and conclusions put forward by Dienes and Seth, and why we think the two experiments end up with so different recommendations.

A modified flanker task was used to assess the effects of spatial attention during conscious and nonconscious processing. In line with prior findings, we demonstrated that increasing spatial separation between flankers and probes diminished the differences between reaction times to the incongruent and congruent probe–flanker pairs. This trend occurred even when the identity of flankers was suppressed from awareness by a metacontrast mask, indicating that spatial attention can be allocated to information processed at the nonconscious, in addition to the conscious, (...) levels, that effects of spatial attention at these two levels can be equivalent, and that attention deployed at the nonconscious level of processing can be characterized by a spatial gradient that is nearly identical to that found at the conscious level of processing. (shrink)

Negative compatibility effects in the masked-prime paradigm are usually obtained when primes are masked effectively. With ineffective masks—and primes above the perceptual threshold—positive compatibility effects occur. We investigated whether this pattern reflects a causal relationship between conscious awareness and low-level motor control, or whether it reflects the fact that both are affected in the same way by changes in physical stimulus attributes. In a 5-session perceptual learning task, participants learned to consciously identify masked primes. However, they showed unaltered NCEs that (...) were not different from those produced by participants in a control group without equivalent perceptual learning. A control experiment demonstrated that no NCEs occur when prime identification is made possible by ineffective masking. The results suggest that perceptual awareness and low-level motor control are affected by the same factors, but are fundamentally independent of each other. (shrink)

There are conflicting views concerning the electrophysiological correlates of visual consciousness. Whereas one view considers a relatively late positive deflection as a primary correlate of consciousness, another model links consciousness with earlier negativity . The present experiment utilized metacontrast masking in investigating the electrophysiological correlates of visual consciousness. The participants were presented with target-mask sequences in three stimulus onset asynchronies. The target stimuli were followed by either a metacontrast mask or a similar-looking, but ineffective pseudomask. The results showed that the (...) first deflection that correlated with target visibility was VAN which was followed by LP. We argue that the VAN is the primary correlate target visibility, while the LP reflects later, postperceptual processing stages. (shrink)

This paper discusses several key issues concerning consciousness and human vision. A brief overview is presented of recent developments in this area, including issues that have been resolved and issues that remain unsettled. Based on this, three Hilbert questions are proposed. These involve three related sets of issues: the kinds of visual experience that exist, the kinds of visual attention that exist, and the ways that these relate to each other.

Mark Changizi et al. (2008) claim that it is possible systematically to organize more than 50 kinds of illusions in a 7 × 4 matrix of 28 classes. This systematization, they further maintain, can be explained by the operation of a single visual processing latency correction mechanism that they call “perceiving the present” (PTP). This brief report raises some concerns about the way a number of illusions are classified by the proposed systematization. It also poses two general problems—one empirical and (...) one conceptual—for the PTP approach. (shrink)

A theory of the structure and cognitive function of the human imagination that attempts to do justice to traditional intuitions about its psychological centrality is developed, largely through a detailed critique of the theory propounded by Colin McGinn. Like McGinn, I eschew the highly deflationary views of imagination, common amongst analytical philosophers, that treat it either as a conceptually incoherent notion, or as psychologically trivial. However, McGinn fails to develop his alternative account satisfactorily because (following Reid, Wittgenstein and Sartre) he (...) draws an excessively sharp, qualitative distinction between imagination and perception, and because of his flawed, empirically ungrounded conception of hallucination. His arguments in defense of these views are rebutted in detail, and the traditional, passive, Cartesian view of visual perception, upon which several of them implicitly rely, is criticized in the light of findings from recent cognitive science and neuroscience. It is also argued that the apparent intuitiveness of the passive view of visual perception is a result of mere historical contingency. An understanding of perception (informed by modern visual science) as an inherently active process enables us to unify our accounts of perception, mental imagery, dreaming, hallucination, creativity, and other aspects of imagination within a single coherent theoretical framework. (shrink)

This article concerns the interplay between two issues that involve both philosophy and neuroscience: whether the content of phenomenal consciousness is 'rich' or 'sparse', whether phenomenal consciousness goes beyond cognitive access, and how it would be possible for there to be evidence one way or the other.

Evidence for a dichotomy between the planning of an action and its on-line control in humans is reviewed. This evidence suggests that planning and control each serve a specialized purpose utilizing distinct visual representations. Evidence from behavioral studies suggests that planning is influenced by a large array of visual and cognitive information, whereas control is influenced solely by the spatial characteristics of the target, including such things as its size, shape, orientation, and so forth. Evidence from brain imaging and neuropsychology (...) suggests that planning and control are subserved by separate visual centers in the posterior parietal lobes, each constituting part of a larger network for planning and control. Planning appears to rely on phylogenetically newer regions in the inferior parietal lobe, along with the frontal lobes and basal ganglia, whereas control appears to rely on older regions in the superior parietal lobe, along with the cerebellum. Key Words: action; apraxia; control; illusions; optic ataxia; PET; planning; reaching;. (shrink)

I examine John Campbell’s claim that the determination of the reference of a perceptual demonstrative requires conscious visual object-based selective attention. I argue that although Campbell’s claim to the effect that, first, a complex binding parameter is needed to establish the referent of a perceptual demonstrative, and, second, that this referent is determined independently of, and before, the application of sortals is correct, this binding parameter does not require object-based attention for its construction. If object-based attention were indeed required then (...) the determination of the referent would necessarily involve the application of sortal concepts, since object-based attention initiates top-down cognitive effects on visual processing. I also examine Mohan Matthen’s claim that reference to objects is established only through the visual processing in the dorsal visual stream and argue that although it is true that processing in the dorsal stream can determine reference, a thesis that goes against Campbell’s view that the determination of the referent requires conscious attention, processing along the ventral visual stream can also establish the reference of perceptual demonstratives. It also claim that Matthen’s account of dorsal processing underestimates the kind of information processed along the dorsal stream and this has some implications regarding perceptual demonstratives reference fixing. (shrink)

According to commonsense psychology, one is conscious of everything that one pays attention to, but one does not pay attention to all the things that one is conscious of. Recent lines of research purport to show that commonsense is mistaken on both of these points: Mack and Rock (1998) tell us that attention is necessary for consciousness, while Kentridge and Heywood (2001) claim that consciousness is not necessary for attention. If these lines of research were successful they would have important (...) implications regarding the prospects of using attention research to inform us about consciousness. The present essay shows that these lines of research are not successful, and that the commonsense picture of the relationship between attention and consciousness can be. (shrink)

Pleasure, in the inclusive usages most important in moral psychology, ethical theory, and the studies of mind, includes all joy and gladness — all our feeling good, or happy. It is often contrasted with similarly inclusive pain, or suffering, which is similarly thought of as including all our feeling bad. Contemporary psychology similarly distinguishes between positive affect and negative affect.[1..

1 INSERM-CEA Unit 562, Cognitive Neuroimaging, Service Hospitalier Fre´de´ric Joliot, Orsay, France, 2 CNRS URA2182 Re´cepteurs and Cognition, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.

Constructivism undermines realism by arguing that experience is mediated by concepts, and that there is no direct way to examine those aspects of objects that belong to them independently of our conceptualizations; perception is theory-laden. To defend realism one has to show first that perception relates us directly with the world without any intermediary conceptual framework. The result of this direct link is the nonconceptual content of experience. Second, one has to show that part of the nonconceptual content extracted from (...) the environment correctly represents features of mind independent objects. With regard to the first condition, I have argued elsewhere that a part of visual processing, which I call “perception,” is theory-neutral and nonconceptual. In this paper, facing the second demand, I argue that a part of the nonconceptual content of perception presents properties that are the properties of mind independent objects. I claim first that nonconceptual content is the appropriate level of analysis of the issue of realism since it avoids the main problems besetting various types of analysis of the issue at the level of beliefs about the world. Then I claim that a subset of the nonconceptual content presents features of objects in the environment as they really are. (shrink)

Amidst the many brain events evoked by a visual stimulus, which are specifically associated with conscious perception, and which merely reflect non-conscious processing? Several recent neuroimaging studies have contrasted conscious and non-conscious visual processing, but their results appear inconsistent. Some support a correlation of conscious perception with early occipital events, others with late parieto-frontal activity. Here we attempt to make sense of those dissenting results. On the basis of a minimal neuro-computational model, the global neuronal workspace hypothesis, we propose a (...) taxonomy which distinguishes between vigilance and access to conscious report, as well as between subliminal, preconscious and conscious processing. We suggest that these distinctions map onto different neural mechanisms, and that conscious perception is systematically associated with a sudden surge of parieto-frontal activity causing top-down amplification. (shrink)

According to rich views of consciousness (e.g., James, Searle), we have a constant, complex flow of experience (or 'phenomenology') in multiple modalities simultaneously. According to thin views (e.g., Dennett, Mack and Rock), conscious experience is limited to one or a few topics, regions, objects, or modalities at a time. Existing introspective and empirical arguments on this issue (including arguments from 'inattentional blindness') generally beg the question. Participants in the present experiment wore beepers during everyday activity. When a beep sounded, they (...) were to take note of the conscious experience, if any, they were having at the last undisturbed moment immediately prior to the beep. Some participants were asked to report any experience they could remember. Others were asked simply to report whether there was visual experience or not (and if so, what it was). Still others were asked about experience in the far right visual field, or tactile experience, or tactile experience in the left foot. A majority of participants in the full experience and the visual conditions reported visual experience in every single sample. Tactile and peripheral visual experience were reported less often. However, the proper interpretation of these results is uncertain. (shrink)

How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We can see the problem in stark form if we ask how we could tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their (...) authority, and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is ‘Yes’? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! The paper argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. The paper argues that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified by the explanations it allows. (shrink)

This article sketches an idealized strategy for the identification of neural correlates of consciousness. The proposed strategy is based on a state space approach originating from the analysis of dynamical systems. The article then focuses on one constituent of consciousness, phenomenal awareness. Several rudimentary requirements for the identification of neural correlates of phenomenal awareness are suggested. These requirements are related to empirical data on selective attention, on completely intrinsic selection and on globally unconscious states. As an example, neuroscientific findings on (...) synchronized γ activity are categorized according to these requirements. (shrink)

We discuss at some length evidence from the cognitive science suggesting that the representations of objects based on spatiotemporal information and featural information retrieved bottomup from a visual scene precede representations of objects that include conceptual information. We argue that a distinction can be drawn between representations with conceptual and nonconceptual content. The distinction is based on perceptual mechanisms that retrieve information in conceptually unmediated ways. The representational contents of the states induced by these mechanisms that are available to a (...) type of awareness called phenomenal awareness constitute the phenomenal content of experience. The phenomenal content of perception contains the existence of objects as separate things that persist in time and time, spatiotemporal information, and information regarding relative spatial relations, motion, surface properties, shape, size, orientation, color, and their functional properties. (shrink)