Modelling the simultaneous encoding/serial experience theory of the perceptual moment: a blink of meta-experience.
Neuroscience of Consciousness January 1, 2022 Howard Bowman, William Jones, Hannah Pincham et al.
When people see two stimuli in rapid succession, the second one is often missed—a phenomenon called the attentional blink. But a new dissociation has been found: while the brain can encode both stimuli into working memory, people consciously experience only the first. This gap between objective encoding and subjective experience, called the meta-experiential blink, grows larger under greater perceptual overload. The findings suggest that the ability to reflect on one's own visual experience (meta-experience) can decouple from what is actually encoded. Computational modeling using the reSTST model, which simulates parallel encoding but serial conscious experience, fits both behavioral and EEG data. This work challenges theories of consciousness, including global workspace theory and higher-order theories, by showing that conscious experience may be inherently serial even when encoding is parallel.