Structural descriptions of qualitative aspects of conscious experience (qualia) offer a rigorous empirical approach to study consciousness. Mathematical structures describing qualia can be mapped to mathematical structures derived from brain activity and underlying neuronal connectivity. That is, rather than merely identifying the co-occurrence of specific neuronal activity patterns with...
The dissemination of spectral information of new psychoactive substances (NPS) acquired on benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers is of high importance considering the emerging application of such portable and accessible instruments in forensic analyses. Seven members of the 2C-X series (2C-B, 2C-C, 2C-D, 2C-E, 2C-P, 2C-T2, and 2C-T7) of NPS were analyzed via 60 MHz 1 H...
Our conscious experience of the world seems to go in lockstep with our attentional focus: We tend to see, hear, taste, and feel what we attend to, and vice versa. This tight coupling between attention and consciousness has given rise to the idea that these two phenomena are indivisible. In the late 1950s, the honoree of this special issue, Charles Eriksen, was among a small group of early...
Abstract This review in memoriam of Jack Pettigrew provides an overview of past and current research into the phenomenon of multistable perception across multiple animal species. Multistable perception is characterized by two or more perceptual interpretations spontaneously alternating, or rivaling, when animals are exposed to stimuli with inherent sensory ambiguity. There is a wide array of...
In 1593, Neapolitan polymath Giambattista della Porta publicly \nlamented that he was unable to improve his impressive productivity \n(he had published in areas as diverse as cryptography, \nhydraulics, pharmacology, optics, and classic fiction). Della \nPorta was trying to read two books simultaneously by placing \nboth volumes side-by-side, and using each eye independently. To \nhis great...