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The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients
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Are there unconscious perceptual processes?

Berit Brogaard1

  • 1Department of Philosophy and Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Saint Louis, Saint Louis, MO 63121, USA. brogaardb@gmail.com

Consciousness and Cognition
|December 15, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Blindsight and vision for action are genuinely unconscious visual processes. New research suggests that while some visual information may reach awareness, it lacks the qualitative experience of normal vision.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Blindsight and vision for action are debated as unconscious visual processes.
  • Recent studies challenge the unconscious nature of these visual functions.
  • New methods assess stimulus visibility and its correlation with accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To provide evidence supporting blindsight and vision for action as truly unconscious perceptual processes.
  • To re-evaluate the role of the dorsal stream in visual awareness and working memory.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized novel methods to measure visual stimulus visibility.
  • Correlated reported stimulus clarity with accuracy in normal and blindsight individuals.
  • Analyzed information processing in the dorsal stream, including early (V1-V3) and later (parietal lobe) stages.

Main Results:

  • Reported clarity of visual stimuli correlates with accuracy in both normal and blindsight patients.
  • Information processed by later dorsal stream areas (parietal lobe) does not reach working memory.
  • Blindsight patients lack access to qualitative visual information (color, size) associated with normal visual phenomenology.

Conclusions:

  • Blindsight is characterized by cognitive consciousness but lacks visual phenomenology.
  • Only early dorsal stream information is broadcast to working memory, correlating with phenomenal awareness.
  • Both blindsight and vision for action are concluded to be genuinely unconscious visual processes.