This paper presents evidence that even if two individuals exhibit similar reactions caused by their autonomous nervous systems towards the same external stimuli, one may form a memory that can be recalled consciously, whereas the other may form a memory that cannot be processed consciously. We had fifteen monitors watch films, and we recorded their heart rates. Two monitors exhibited similar au...

The question of how human performance can be improved through rewards is a recurrent topic of interest in psychology and neuroscience. Traditional, cognitive approaches to this topic have focused solely on consciously communicated rewards. Recently, a largely neuroscience-inspired perspective has emerged to examine the potential role of conscious awareness of reward information in effective rew...

Despite being experienced as continuous, there is an ongoing debate if perception is an intrinsically discrete process, with incoming sensory information treated as a succession of single perceptual cycles. Here, we provide causal evidence that somatosensory perception is composed of discrete perceptual cycles. We used in humans an electrotactile temporal discrimination task preceded by a subli...

The current work examined the untested assumption that implicit self-esteem is nonconscious and cannot be assessed consciously. Participants completed measures of implicit and explicit self-esteem. Later, they guessed their level of implicit or unconscious self-esteem. Results indicated that participants were largely unable to assess consciously their implicit self-esteem. Estimations of implic...

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 ...

The transformation of industrial city into modern city entailed the change in the dominant nature of the city from the site of production to that of consumption. In the postmodern city, the trend accelerated, or better to say, heightened into "mass consumption". Consumption is no longer considered a routine and banal activity. It is rather a consciously and unconsciously affected affair that is...

Do facial expressions of emotion influence us when not consciously perceived? Methods to investigate this question have typically relied on brief presentation of static images. In contrast, real facial expressions are dynamic and unfold over several seconds. Recent studies demonstrate that gaze contingent crowding (GCC) can block awareness of dynamic expressions while still inducing behavioural...

While our understanding of the human brain is far from complete, novel neural mechanisms are being identified that may better inform efforts by robotics researchers confined by currently computational modeling approaches in designing machines. Such biological principles may open new routes to autonomous, learning robots. To illustrate, we know that patients with impairments in regions associate...

█ Abstract Tim Crane maintains that beliefs cannot be conscious because they persist in the absence of consciousness. Conscious judgments can share their contents with beliefs, and their occurrence can be evidence for what one believes; but they cannot be beliefs, because they don’t persist. I challenge Crane’s premise that belief attributions to the temporarily unconscious are literally true. ...