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)

RESUMEN Muchos psiquiatras se encuentran constantemente con pacientes cuyos síntomas incluyen trastornos o alteraciones de la conciencia. Infortunadamente, el significado del término conciencia es poco claro. Este artículo hace un repaso sistemático de varios significados atribuidos a dicho término, así como de diversos problemas filosóficos asociados. Asimismo, reconstruye varias teorías filosóficas y científicas de la conciencia, identificando sus ventajas y desventajas. Al final, ofrece algunas sugerencias para el uso del término conciencia en la psiquiatría. ABSTRACT Psychiatrists often encounter patients whose (...) symptoms include disorders or impairments of consciousness. Unfortunately, the meaning of the term consciousness is not altogether clear. This article presents a systematic review of various meanings attributed to this term, as well as of diverse associated philosophical problems. Likewise, it reconstructs some philosophical and scientific theories of consciousness, identifying their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, it offers some suggestions for the use of the term consciousness in psychiatry. (shrink)

Muchos psiquiatras se encuentran constantemente con pacientes cuyos síntomas incluyen trastornos o alteraciones de la conciencia. Infortunadamente, el significado del término conciencia es poco claro. Este artículo hace un repaso sistemático de varios significados atribuidos a dicho término, así como de diversos problemas filosóficos asociados. Asimismo, reconstruye varias teorías filosóficas y científicas de la conciencia, identificando sus ventajas y desventajas. Al final, ofrece algunas sugerencias para el uso del término conciencia en la psiquiatría.

This paper aims to conceptualize the phenomenology of attentional experience as ‘embodied attention.’ Current psychological research, in describing attentional experiences, tends to apply the so-called spotlight metaphor, according to which attention is characterized as the illumination of certain surrounding objects or events. In this framework, attention is not seen as involving our bodily attitudes or modifying the way we experience those objects and events. It is primarily conceived as a purely mental and volitional activity of the cognizing subject. Against this (...) view, the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that attention is a creative activity deeply linked with bodily movements. This paper clarifies and systematizes this view and brings it into dialogue with current empirical findings as well as with current theoretical research on embodied cognition. By doing this, I spell out three main claims about embodied attention: the transcendentalism of embodiment for attention, the bodily subjectivity of attention, and the creativity of embodied attention. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that storing predictive relations between two events in memory as bi-directional associations does not require conscious awareness of this relation, whereas the formation of unidirectional associations that capture the direction of the relation does. This study reports a set of experiments demonstrating that unidirectional associations can be formed even when awareness of the relation is actively prevented, if attention is “tuned” to process predictive relations. When participants engaged in predicting targets based on cues in an unrelated (...) task before the actual acquisition phase, unidirectional associations were formed during this acquisition phase even though E1 was presented subliminally. This suggests that although processing the relation between events may often be accompanied by awareness of this relation, awareness is not a prerequisite for the formation of unidirectional associations. (shrink)

Does phenomenal consciousness overflow access consciousness? Some researchers have claimed that it does, relying on interpretations of various psychological experiments such as Sperling's or Landman's, and crucially using alleged subjective reports from participants to argue in favor of these interpretations. However, systematic empirical investigations of participants' subjective reports are scarce. To fill this gap, we reproduced Sperling's and Landman's experiments, and carefully collected reports made by subjects about their own experiences, using questionnaires and interviews. We found that participants' subjective reports (...) do not support the overflow thesis, but rather suggest alternative interpretations of the experiments. (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.

Demonstrative thoughts are distinguished by the fact that their contents are determined relationally, via perception, rather than descriptively. Therefore, a fundamental task of a theory of demonstrative thought is to elucidate how facts about visual perception can explain how these thoughts come to have the contents that they do. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how cognitive psychology may help us solve this metasemantic question, through empirical models of visual processing. Although there is a dispute between attentional and (...) non-attentional models concerning the best metasemantic mechanism for demonstrative thoughts, in this paper I will argue in favor of a hybrid model, which combines both types of processes. In this picture, attentional and non-attentional mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, and each plays a specific role in determining the singular content of demonstrative thoughts. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA cognitive autopoietic system is a dynamic, self-generating, organized and self-organizing thing which self-regulates with respect to an external medium. The present model of the effect of stress on a cognitive autopoietic system captures the notion of how a priori cognitive structures, combined with external sensations, constitute the basis for the development of cognitive structures and their architecture. The ESCA model integrates the fact that the mind–environment relation has a twofold effect: on one hand, it enables self-regulation of mind, but (...) on the other hand, it poses a potential perturbation on the same, which may result in the breakdown of the self-regulation of mind. The architecture of the CS developed on the basis of the ESCA model is consistent with the manifestations of the effect of stress on mind behavior at different levels. The ESCA model predicts that the faculty to concatenate... (shrink)

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)

In his analysis of subliminal perception research, Erdelyi documented two important phenomena: subchance perception and temporal variability in stimulus availability and accessibility. This Commentary addresses three issues raised by Erdelyi's review: the importance of distinguishing “micro” from “macro” temporal shifts; the need to analyze perception without awareness data at the level of the individual as well as the group; and parallels between the dissociations associated with neuroclinical phenomena and those observed in patients with certain forms of personality pathology. Continued integration (...) of laboratory findings with in vivo observations of clinical syndromes will yield a more cohesive and heuristic approach to the study of implicit mental states. (shrink)

Often when there is no attention to an object, there is no conscious perception of it either, leading some to conclude that conscious perception is an attentional phenomenon. There is a well-known perceptual phenomenon—visuo-spatial crowding, in which objects are too closely packed for attention to single out one of them. This article argues that there is a variant of crowding—what I call ‘‘identity-crowding’’—in which one can consciously see a thing despite failure of attention to it. This conclusion, together with new (...) evidence that attention to an object occurs in unconscious perception, suggests there may be a double dissociation between conscious perception of an object and attention to that object, constraining the extent to which consciousness can be constitutively attentional. The argument appeals to a comparison between the minimal resolution (or ‘‘grain’’) of object-attention and object-seeing. (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)

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 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.

Scientists disagree about which capacities a functional analysis of consciousness should target. To address this disagreement, I propose that a good functional analysis should target the etiological functions of consciousness. The trouble is that most hypotheses about the etiological origins of consciousness presuppose particular functional analyses. In recent years, however, a small number of scientists have begun to offer evolutionary hypotheses that are relatively theory neutral. I argue that their hypotheses can serve an independent standard for evaluating among theories of (...) consciousness. (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.

Perceptual experiences justify beliefs. A perceptual experience of a dog justifies the belief that there is a dog present. But there is much evidence that perceptual states can occur without being conscious, as in experiments involving masked priming. Do unconscious perceptual states provide justification as well? The answer depends on one’s theory of justification. While most varieties of externalism seem compatible with unconscious perceptual justification, several theories have recently afforded to consciousness a special role in perceptual justification. We argue that (...) such views face a dilemma: either consciousness should be understood in functionalist terms, in which case our best current theories of consciousness do not seem to imbue consciousness with any special epistemic features, or it should not, in which case it is mysterious why only conscious states are justificatory. We conclude that unconscious perceptual justification is quite plausible. (shrink)

Relationalism holds that perceptual experiences are relations between subjects and perceived objects. But much evidence suggests that perceptual states can be unconscious. We argue here that unconscious perception raises difficulties for relationalism. Relationalists would seem to have three options. First, they may deny that there is unconscious perception or question whether we have sufficient evidence to posit it. Second, they may allow for unconscious perception but deny that the relationalist analysis applies to it. Third, they may offer a relationalist explanation (...) of unconscious perception. We argue that each of these strategies is questionable. (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)

The phenomenon of consciousness has received through the centuries a profusion of interpretations, engaging researchers across many disciplines. Nevertheless, consensus still floats at large. The aim of the present work is therefore twofold. Through the review of a selected number of existing proposals, it will first be considered the extents of their reciprocal compatibility, tentatively shaping an integrated, theoretical profile of consciousness. A new theory, the Endogenous Feedback Network will consequently be introduced which, besides being able to accommodate the main (...) tenets of the reviewed theories, appears able to compensate for the explanatory gaps they leave behind. The EFN proposes consciousness as the phenomenon emerging from a distinct neural network broadcasting the changes associated to mental activations across the brain. It additionally argues for the need to include a 5th element to Ned Block’s taxonomy that is, non-cognitive consciousness. (shrink)

Mindfulness can be understood as the mental ability to focus on the direct and immediate perception or monitoring of the present moment with a state of open and nonjudgmental awareness. Descriptions of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originated in eastern spiritual traditions. These suggest that mindfulness can be developed through meditation practice to increase positive qualities such as awareness, insight, wisdom, and compassion. In this article we focus on the relationships between mindfulness, with associated meditation practices, and the cognitive (...) neuroscience of attention and awareness. Mindful awareness is related to distributed attention, phenomenal consciousness, and momentary self-awareness, as characterized by recent findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience as well as in influential consciousness models. Finally, we outline an integrated neurocognitive model of mindfulness, attention, and awareness, with a key role of prefrontal cortex. (shrink)

A tacit assumption in the field of consciousness studies is that the more empirical evidence a theory can explain, the better it fares when weighed against competitors. If one wants to take seriously the potential for empirical evidence to move forward debates in consciousness studies, there is a need to gather, organize, validate, and compare evidence. We present an inference to the best explanation (IBE) process on the basis of empirical support that is applicable in debates between competing theories of (...) consciousness. Our proposed IBE process consists in four steps: Assimilate, Compile, Validate, and Compare. Until now, the vast majority of the work in the field has consisted in gathering empirical evidence for theories i.e., the assimilation step. To illustrate the feasibility of our proposed IBE process, and what it may look like when applied in practice, we deliver a complete collection (the compilation step) of empirical support for the distinction between A-Consciousness and P-Consciousness and the overflow hypothesis. Finally, we offer an example of the validation step, by scrutinizing the interpretation of aphantasics’ performance on retro-cue paradigms offered in the literature in support of the overflow hypothesis. The compilation we deliver here is the first effort in the IBE process, the end result of which — hopefully — will be the ability of the research community to carry out side-by-side comparisons of theories and the empirical phenomena they claim to explain, i.e., the comparison step. (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)

Consciousness is central to our lived experience. It is unsurprising, then, that the topic has captivated many students, neuroscientists, philosophers, and other theorists working in cognitive science. But consciousness may seem especially difficult to explain. This is in part because the term “consciousness” has been used in many different ways. The goal of this chapter is to explore several kinds of consciousness: what theorists have called “creature,” “phenomenal,” “access,” “state,” “transitive,” “introspective,” and “self” consciousness. The basic distinctions among these kinds (...) of consciousness are described in Section 1. Section 2 raises potential challenges for explaining these varieties of consciousness and describes a few current theories of them. Section 3 closes the chapter by exploring directions for future work in the cognitive science of consciousness. Along the way, some of the possible interrelationships among these kinds of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

We agree with Block's basic hypothesis postulating the existence of phenomenal consciousness without cognitive access. We explain such states in terms of consciousness without top-down, endogenous attention and speculate that their correlates may be a coalition of neurons that are consigned to the back of cortex, without access to working memory and planning in frontal cortex.

: Fodor argues that perceptual representations are a subset of iconic representations, which are distinguished from symbolic/discursive representations. Iconic representations are nonconceptual and they do not support the abilities afforded by concepts. Iconic representations, for example, cannot support object individuation. If someone thinks that perception or some of its parts has imagistic NCC, they face the following dilemma. Either they will have to accept that this NCC does not allow for object individuation, but it represents instead conglomerations of properties and (...) at some stage of visual processing it must interface with cognition and its conceptual capacities for the visual objects to be individuated. Or, they will have to hold that the imagistic, NCC of perception, allows for object individuation. I opt for the second thesis because I think there is strong empirical evidence that objects are individuated during early vision. I also think that early vision individuates objects by means of, what I had previously called nonconceptual perceptual demonstrative reference. I argue, first, why Fodor’s view that iconic NCC does not enable object individuation is false. I also argue, contra Fodor, that early vision allows the perception of the cardinality of sets of objects. Keywords : Early Vision; Analog Representations; Object Individuation; Arithmetic Cognition; Cardinality of Sets L'individuazione di oggetti mediante il contenuto iconico: come è rappresentata la numerosità nella rappresentazione iconica? Riassunto: Per Fodor le rappresentazioni percettive sono un sottoinsieme delle rappresentazioni iconiche, distinte dalle rappresentazioni simbolico/discorsive. Le rappresentazioni iconiche sono nonconcettuali e non supportano le abilità richieste dai concetti. Le rappresentazioni iconiche, per esempio, non supportano l'individuazione di oggetti. Se si pensa che la percezione o qualche sua parte abbia un contenuto nonconcettuale come immagine, si ci si imbatte nel seguente dilemma. O si accetta che il NCC non permetta di individuare oggetti, ma che rappresenti conglomerati di proprietà e che si interfacci con la cognizione e le sue capacità concettuali, per individuare gli oggetti visivi. O si dice che l'immagine, il NCC, della percezione consenta di individuare oggetti. Propendo per la seconda tesi, poiché penso che ci sia solida evidenza empirica per cui gli oggetti vengono individuati durante le prime fasi della visione, in cui l’individuazione avviene mediante quanto definito come riferimento dimostrativo del contenuto nonconcettuale percettivo. Chiarirò le ragioni per cui la concezione di Fodor, per cui il contenuto nonconcettuale iconico non supporta l’individuazione di oggetti, è falsa. Inoltre, contra Fodor, sosterrò che le prime fasi della visione permettono la percezione della cardinalità di insiemi di oggetti. Parole chiave: Prime fasi della visione; Rappresentazioni analogiche; Individuazione di oggetti; Cognizione aritmetica; Cardinalità degli insiemi. (shrink)

According to the influential thesis of attentional transparency, in having or reflecting on an ordinary visual experience, we can attend only outwards, to qualities the experience represents, never to intrinsic qualities of the experience itself, i.e., to “mental paint.” According to the competing view, attentional semitransparency, although we usually attend outwards, to qualities the experience represents, we can also attend inwards, to mental paint. So far, philosophers have debated this topic in strictly armchair means, especially phenomenological reflection. My aim in (...) this paper is to show how to design an experiment, using the change detection paradigm for studying visual working memory that, if yielding positive results, would support AS. The structure of the argument is as follows. In standard change detection tasks, which involve attention to qualities the experience represents, there exists a known object integration effect (Luck and Vogel in Nature 390(6657):279–281, 1997). I formulate a hypothesis I call “the turn-off hypothesis,” according to which this effect does not exist in change detection tasks where subjects are instructed to attend to mental paint. I argue that, given AS, we have some reason to expect the turn-off hypothesis to be true, but given AT, we do not. Consequently, the truth of the turn-off hypothesis would support AS. I further argue that one can straightforwardly test the turn-off hypothesis, taking the standard change detection paradigm and instructing participants to attend inwards. (shrink)

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)

I propose that primary conscious awareness arises from synchronized activity in dendrites of neurons in dorsal thalamic nuclei, mediated particularly by inhibitory interactions with thalamic reticular neurons. In support, I offer four evidential pillars: consciousness is restricted to the results of cortical computations; thalamus is the common locus of action of brain injury in vegetative state and of general anesthetics; the anatomy and physiology of the thalamus imply a central role in consciousness; neural synchronization is a neural correlate of consciousness.