Dissociable Electroencephalograph Correlates of Visual Awareness and Feature-Based Attention

Dissociable Electroencephalograph Correlates of Visual Awareness and Feature-Based Attention

Background: The relationship between awareness and attention is complex and controversial. A growing body of literature has shown that the neural bases of consciousness and endogenous attention (voluntary attention) are independent. The important role of exogenous attention (reflexive attention) on conscious experience has been noted in several studies. However, exogenous attention can also mod...

Visual attention: Spotlights, highlights and visual awareness

The phenomenon of visual attention has long fascinated scientists interested in higher functions of the brain. Introspection suggests that attention exerts a powerful influence on the flow of visual information within our brains: everyone is familiar with the experience of attending so intently to a particular object in the visual world that he/she is oblivious to other salient stimuli present ...

3 . Visual Attention and Visual Awareness

Feature-based attention in visual cortex

Although most studies of visual attention have examined the effects of shifting attention between different locations in the visual field, attention can also be directed to particular visual features, such as a color, orientation or a direction of motion. Single-unit studies have shown that attention to a feature modulates neuronal signals in a range of areas in monkey visual cortex. The locati...

Cerebral correlates of visual awareness.

While it may be a long time before we can specify the mechanisms through which a brain process achieves awareness, it may be possible to determine as a first step whether awareness is limited to the products of certain kinds of processing. In the domain of vision, for example, perceptual awareness might only be attainable in association with object-centred coding, configural representations of ...