Spatial attention speeds discrimination without awareness in blindsight

Kentridge, Robert W.; Heywood, Charles A.; Weiskrantz, Lawrence

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.001

Cited by 192 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In other words, it should be possible to attend to an object without awareness of it, but difficult to be aware of an object without attention to it. This pattern broadly matches the literature on the relationship between attention and awareness (e.g., Dehaene et al, 2006;Jiang et al, 2006;Kentridge et al, 2004;Koch & Tsuchiya, 2007;Lamme, 2004;Naccache et al, 2002). Koch and Tsuchiya (2007) argued that, qualitatively, it seems possible to be aware of stimuli at the periphery of attention, and therefore awareness must be possible with minimal attention.…”

Section: Challenge 2: How Can the Machinery For Social Perception Gaisupporting

confidence: 86%

“…The distinction between awareness and attention has been studied before (e.g., Dehaene, Changeux, Naccache, Sackur, & Sergent, 2006;Jiang, Costello, Fang, Huang, & He, 2006;Kentridge, Heywood, & Weiskrantz, 2004;Koch & Tsuchiya, 2007;Lamme, 2004;Naccache, Blandin, & Dehaene, 2002). The two almost always covary, but under some circumstances it is possible to attend to a stimulus and at the same time be unaware of the stimulus (Jiang et al, 2006;Kentridge et al, 2004;Naccache et al, 2002).…”

Section: Awareness As a Product Of Social Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1^stperson perspective and self-location

Elk

Blanke

2011

Cognitive Neuroscience

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Section: Challenge 2: How Can the Machinery For Social Perception Gaisupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Awareness As a Product Of Social Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1^stperson perspective and self-location

Elk

Blanke

2011

Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…This highfrequency oscillatory activity is therefore likely to correspond to an attention-related process (Womelsdorf and Fries, 2007). Moreover, the fact that this attentional modulation was present whether stimuli were consciously seen or not adds to the growing evidence that attentional processes can influence the processing of unseen stimuli (Naccache et al, 2002;Woodman and Luck, 2003;Kentridge et al, 2004;Sumner et al, 2006;Bahrami et al, 2007).…”

Section: A Neural Dissociation Between Visual Awareness From Spatial mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Recently gathered psychophysical evidence has indeed shown that the two may be dissociable under some conditions (Woodman and Luck, 2003;Kentridge et al, 2004;Sumner et al, 2006), and theoretical developments suggest distinct underlying brain mechanisms (Lamme, 2004). However, most of the proposed neural correlates of visual awareness do not explicitly distinguish top-down attention from awareness per se: consequently, experimental evidence supporting their neural dissociation has remained sparse (FernandezDuque et al, 2003;Babiloni et al, 2006;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Dissociation between Visual Awareness and Spatial Attention

2008

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To what extent does what we consciously see depend on where we attend to? Psychologists have long stressed the tight relationship between visual awareness and spatial attention at the behavioral level. However, the amount of overlap between their neural correlates remains a matter of debate. We recorded magnetoencephalographic signals while human subjects attended toward or away from faint stimuli that were reported as consciously seen only half of the time. Visually identical stimuli could thus be attended or not and consciously seen or not. Although attended stimuli were consciously seen slightly more often than unattended ones, the factorial analysis of stimulus-induced oscillatory brain activity revealed distinct and independent neural correlates of visual awareness and spatial attention at different frequencies in the gamma range (30 -150 Hz). Whether attended or not, consciously seen stimuli induced increased mid-frequency gamma-band activity over the contralateral visual cortex, whereas spatial attention modulated high-frequency gammaband activity in response to both consciously seen and unseen stimuli. A parametric analysis of the data at the single-trial level confirmed that the awareness-related mid-frequency activity drove the seen-unseen decision but also revealed a small influence of the attentionrelated high-frequency activity on the decision. These results suggest that subjective visual experience is shaped by the cumulative contribution of two processes operating independently at the neural level, one reflecting visual awareness per se and the other reflecting spatial attention.

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“…Initial suggestive evidence came from a ''blindsight'' patient, GY, who, despite cortical damage that renders him partially blind, can successfully guess the orientation of stimuli he denies seeing. When the location of the unseen stimulus was indicated by a preceding attentional cue, GY performed such ''blind'' orientation discrimination faster (19,20). In people without brain damage, nonconscious processing can be assessed by using brief stimuli that are masked and thus rendered impossible to identify.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional modulation of sensorimotor processes in the absence of perceptual awareness

Sumner

Tsai

et al. 2006

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

114

108

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Attention modulates visual perception and is generally considered inextricably linked with conscious awareness: we become aware of stimuli as we attend to them, and we attend to stimuli as we become aware of them. Recent evidence suggests that attention can also modulate the effects of stimuli that remain invisible, and a natural explanation is that attention enhances weak perceptual representations, bringing them closer to conscious threshold even if they do not reach that threshold. However, there is also the possibility that attention may modulate neural processes that are entirely separate from those supporting conscious perception: sensorimotor mechanisms that do not create awareness however much they are enhanced. Here we provide evidence in support of this second hypothesis by showing that attentional cueing can modulate the behavioral response to invisible stimuli in a way that is distinct from enhancing their visibility. We used a masked-prime paradigm that produces a negative or positive compatibility effect depending on the perceptual strength (duration or brightness) of the prime. We found that attention enhanced the effect of both visible and invisible primes and also increased the likelihood of detecting the prime (i.e., boosted perceptual strength). Crucially, the pattern of attentional influence on priming could not be explained by attentional modulation of the prime's perceptual strength but was predicted by a direct attentional influence on the nonconscious priming process itself. Therefore, in addition to regulating what we perceive, attention seems to influence our behavior through sensorimotor processes that are not involved in conscious awareness.priming ͉ unconscious ͉ motor inhibition ͉ action

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Spatial attention speeds discrimination without awareness in blindsight

Cited by 192 publications

References 19 publications

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1^stperson perspective and self-location

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1^stperson perspective and self-location

Neural Dissociation between Visual Awareness and Spatial Attention

Attentional modulation of sensorimotor processes in the absence of perceptual awareness

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Spatial attention speeds discrimination without awareness in blindsight

Cited by 192 publications

References 19 publications

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1stperson perspective and self-location

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1stperson perspective and self-location

Neural Dissociation between Visual Awareness and Spatial Attention

Attentional modulation of sensorimotor processes in the absence of perceptual awareness

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1^stperson perspective and self-location

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1^stperson perspective and self-location