Qualia structures collapse for geometric shapes, but not faces, when spatial attention is withdrawn

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Philosophy of Mind
• Psychology

Background:

• Top-down attention is theorized to influence conscious experience content ('what' we see).
• Previous studies used binary judgments (seen/unseen), limiting the characterization of subjective experience quality ('how' we see, or qualia).

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate a similarity rating paradigm for assessing attentional effects on qualia structures.
• To investigate how attention modulates the structure of conscious experience using relational judgments.

Main Methods:

• A dual-task paradigm involving peripheral stimulus pair similarity ratings.
• Utilized rotated letters, colored disks, and grayscale faces as stimuli.
• Employed dimensionality reduction and optimal transport alignment to analyze qualia structures.

Main Results:

• Similarity ratings successfully mapped phenomenological relationships, serving as a proxy for qualia structures.
• Face qualia structures remained robust under both high and low attention conditions.
• Withdrawal of attention led to the collapse of qualia structures for letters and disks.

Conclusions:

• The similarity rating paradigm effectively elucidates qualia structures, extending beyond binary categorizations.
• Attention differentially impacts the structure of conscious experience depending on stimulus type.
• This approach offers a novel method for investigating the qualitative aspects of consciousness.