27 28 The neural correlates of consciousness are typically sought by comparing the overall brain 29 responses to perceived and unperceived stimuli. However, this comparison may be 30 contaminated by non-specific attention, alerting, performance and reporting confounds. 31 Here, we pursue a novel approach, tracking the neuronal coding of consciously and 32 unconsciously perceived contents while ...

INTRODUCTION The ability to understand actions and intentions of others is of great importance to social relationships and is associated with the mirror neuron system of the human brain. Whether conscious perception of specific actions is necessary to trigger activity in this system, or alternatively whether this response is independent of conscious perception is not known. METHODS We address...

Recent evidence has shown that processing action-related language and motor action share common neural representations to a point that the two processes can interfere when performed concurrently. To support the assumption that language-induced motor activity contributes to action word understanding, the present study aimed at ruling out that this activity results from mental imagery of the move...

A model for visual masking based on the notion of interaction of the specific and nonspecific afferent visual systems is presented. Discussion is focused on nonmonotonic masking functions. In particular, it is proposed that in order for visual information Ipatterns, forms, etc.) to be consciously perceived, both specific retino-geniculo-striate impulses and nonspecific retino-reticulocortical i...

Involvement of the right inferior parietal area in action awareness was investigated while taking into account differences in the conscious experiences of one's own actions; especially, the awareness that an intended action is consistent with movement consequences and the awareness of the authorship of the action (i.e., the sense of agency). We hypothesized that these experiences are both assoc...

An important principle of human ethics is that individuals are not responsible for actions performed when unconscious. Recent research found that the generation of an action and the building of a conscious experience of that action (agency) are distinct processes and crucial mechanisms for self-consciousness. Yet, previous agency studies have focussed on actions of a finger or hand. Here, we in...

In this paper, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in 18 normal subjects to investigate whether the ventral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) plays a causal role on visuospatial attention and primary consciousness and whether these 2 functions are linearly correlated with each other. Two distinct experimental conditions involved a similar visual stimuli recognition paradig...

In our previous study, paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) was found in rat’s anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) following the stimulation of the medial thalamus (MT). The present study examines the effect of various peripheral stimulations on the PPF in both consciously awake and anaesthetized rats. During the chronic test, effects of different peripheral stimulations on PPF were measured in consciou...

A substantial body of research has established that even when we are not consciously aware of the faces of others we are nevertheless sensitive to, and impacted by their facial expression. In this paper, we consider this body of research from a new perspective by examining the functions of unconscious perception revealed by these studies. A consideration of the literature from this perspective ...

Because memory retrieval often requires overt responses, it is difficult to determine to what extend forgetting occurs as a problem in explicit accessing of long-term memory traces. In this study, we used eye-tracking measures in combination with a behavioral task that favored high forgetting rates to investigate the existence of memory traces from long-term memory in spite of failure in access...