Distinct cortical codes and temporal dynamics for conscious and unconscious percepts
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The neural correlates of consciousness are typically sought by comparing the overall brain responses to perceived and unperceived stimuli. However, this comparison may be contaminated by non-specific attention, alerting, performance, and reporting confounds. Here, we pursue a novel approach, tracking the neuronal coding of consciously and unconsciously perceived contents while keeping behavior identical (blindsight). EEG and MEG were recorded while participants reported the spatial location and visibility of a briefly presented target. Multivariate pattern analysis demonstrated that considerable information about spatial location traverses the cortex on blindsight trials, but that starting ≈270 ms post-onset, information unique to consciously perceived stimuli, emerges in superior parietal and superior frontal regions. Conscious access appears characterized by the entry of the perceived stimulus into a series of additional brain processes, each restricted in time, while the failure of conscious access results in the breaking of this chain and a subsequent slow decay of the lingering unconscious activity.
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Studies on humans using different measurement techniques have found that conscious experience is associated with ignition-like activity patterns and decodability from PFC.
“Studies on humans using different measurement techniques have similarly found that conscious experience is associated with ignition-like activity patterns and decodability from PFC (e.g.Salti et al. 2015).”
From Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness (2023) · cites this paper as Salti et al. 2015
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Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing
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“Even then, stimuli also differ in their depth of processing: performance is typically much higher for conscious trials (Lau and Passingham, 2006), and several operations may only be feasible in the conscious state (Sackur and Dehaene, 2009; De Lange et al., 2011).”
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- Authors
- Salti, M., Monto, S., Charles, L., King, J.-R., Parkkonen, L., & Dehaene, S.
- Affiliations
- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (IL)
- Inserm (FR)
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Gif sur Yvette, France
- Université Paris-Sud (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Salti, Moti
- Venue
- eLife
- Publisher
- eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
- Published
- 2015-05-21
- Volume
- 4
- ISSN
- 2050-084X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4467230
- OpenAlex
- W2151513934
- Cited by
- 121
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 3 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 6.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Fondation Fyssen
- European Research Council (ERC) (NeuroConsc)
- Direction Générale de l'Armement
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Keywords
- neural correlates of consciousness, blindsight, unconscious perception, conscious access, superior parietal cortex, superior frontal cortex, temporal dynamics, multivariate pattern analysis, EEG, MEG
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Consciousness, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Space Perception, Unconscious, Psychology, Magnetoencephalography, Multivariate Analysis
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