Consciousness research has long been dominated by competing grand theories, yet consensus remains elusive. We propose shifting focus toward construct-based, data-driven, and iterative approaches that identify the empirical building blocks of conscious experience and provide a more cumulative, integrative path forward for the field.
The scope of unconscious processing has long been, and still remains, a hotly debated issue. This is driven in part by the current diversity of methods to manipulate and measure perceptual consciousness. Here, we provide ten recommendations and nine outstanding issues about designing experimental paradigms, analyzing data, and reporting the results of studies on unconscious processing. These...
Dreaming represents a complex and universal aspect of human sleep, yet it remains an intriguing phenomenon, with the neural mechanisms underlying dream experiences and their frequency not fully understood. This study employs a multimodal neuroimaging approach, integrating quantitative multi-parameter mapping, diffusion tensor imaging, and resting-state functional MRI, to investigate the neural...
Study Objectives: Nightmares are linked to daytime distress and psychiatric and neurological disorders. However, knowledge about the brain regions involved in nightmare production is sparse. This study aimed to examine the relationship between nightmare frequency and the functional connectivity of the amygdala with the prefrontal cortex, which is central to emotional regulation. Additionally,...
The contribution of the prefrontal areas to visual awareness is critical for the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and higher-order theories of consciousness. The goal of the present study was to test the potential engagement of the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) in visual awareness judgements. We aimed to temporarily influence the neuronal dynamics of the left aMPFC via...
In the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, it is often assumed that there is a stable set within the relevant sensory modality. Within the visual modality, the debate has centred upon whether frontal or occipital activations are the best predictors of perceptual awareness. Although not accepted by all as definitive evidence, no-report and decoding studies have indicated that...
A theoretical and empirical association between lucid dreaming and mindfulness, as well as lucid dreaming and nightmares has previously been observed; however, the relationship between nightmares and mindfulness has received surprisingly little attention. Here, we present the findings of two studies exploring the relation of nightmare frequency and distress with two components of mindfulness,...
A theoretical and empirical association between lucid dreaming and mindfulness, as well as lucid dreaming and nightmares has previously been observed; however, the relationship between nightmares and mindfulness has received surprisingly little attention. Here, we present the findings of two studies exploring the relation of nightmare frequency and distress with two components of mindfulness,...
Accurate insight into subjective experience is crucial for the science of consciousness. The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) was created in 2004 as a method for obtaining precise introspective reports for participants in research projects, and since then, the scale has become increasingly popular. This does not mean, of course, that no critiques have been voiced. Here, we briefly recapitulate...
Abstract The theoretical landscape of scientific studies of consciousness has flourished. Today, even multiple versions of the same theory are sometimes available. To advance the field, these theories should be directly compared to determine which are better at predicting and explaining empirical data. Systematic inquiries of this sort are seen in many subfields in cognitive psychology and...
People often claim seeing images completely despite performing poorly. This highlights an issue with conscious representations. We introduce an experimental manipulation aiming to disentangle two prevalent positions: Rich views posit that people virtually represent the external world with unlimited capacity; Sparse views state that representations are reconstructed from expectations and...
Studies of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) combining MEG/EEG with behavioral data have described two main time ranges relating to conscious perception: 130-320 (the visual awareness negativity; VAN) and 300-500 (P3a) ms after stimulus onset. At the same time, two event-related potential (ERP) peaks have shown an emotional modulation of endogenous attention: the early posterior...
The question of whether conscious experience is best viewed as graded or dichotomous has received much scientific attention in recent years as the answer is relevant not only to models of consciousness, but also to the examination of neural markers of consciousness in patients and infants. Although some studies have found evidence of graded perception, it is unclear whether such perception is...
Two electrophysiological components have been extensively investigated as candidate neural correlates of perceptual consciousness: An early, occipitally realized component occurring 130-320 ms after stimulus onset and a late, frontally realized component occurring 320-510 ms after stimulus onset. Recent studies have suggested that the late component may not be uniquely related to perceptual...
In the past decades, sense of control-the feeling that one is in control of one's actions has gained much scientific interests. Various scales have been used to measure sense of control in previous studies, yet no study has allowed participants to create a scale for rating their control experiences despite advances in the neighboring field of conscious vision has been linked to this approach....
When experiences become meaningful to the self, they are linked to synchronous activity in a paralimbic network of self-awareness and dopaminergic activity. This network includes medial prefrontal and medial parietal/posterior cingulate cortices, where transcranial magnetic stimulation may transiently impair self-awareness. Conversely, we hypothesize that dopaminergic stimulation may improve...
Contrasting conditions with and without awareness has been the preferred method for investigating the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) for decades, yet recently it has been suggested that further insights can be made by moving beyond this method, specifically by meticulously controlling that potential precursors and consequences of the NCC are not mistaken for an NCC. Here, we briefly...
During binocular rivalry, visual perception alternates spontaneously between two different monocular images. Such perceptual reversals are slowed or halted if stimuli are presented intermittently with inter-stimulus intervals larger than ~400 ms--a phenomenon called stabilization. Often, the neural correlates of reversal and stabilization are studied separately, and both phenomena in turn are...
In experimental investigations of consciousness, participants are asked to reflect upon their own experiences by issuing reports about them in different ways. For this reason, a participant needs some access to the content of her own conscious experience in order to report. In such experiments, the reports typically consist of some variety of ratings of confidence or direct descriptions of...
When consciousness is examined using subjective ratings, the extent to which processing is conscious or unconscious is often estimated by calculating task performance at the subjective threshold or by calculating the correlation between accuracy and awareness. However, both these methods have certain limitations. In the present article, we propose describing task accuracy and awareness as...
There has been considerable interest recently in using multivariate decoding techniques applied to functional MRI signals in order to decode the contents of a person’s consciousness. The use of such signals has inherent disadvantages due to the delay of the hemodynamic response. Moreover to date it has not been shown possible to generalize the decoding of brain signals from one individual to...
What is the best way of assessing the extent to which people are aware of a stimulus? Here, using a masked visual identification task, we compared three measures of subjective awareness: The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS), through which participants are asked to rate the clarity of their visual experience; confidence ratings (CR), through which participants express their confidence in their...
Dienes and Seth (2010) conclude that confidence ratings and post-decision wagering are two comparable and recommendable measures of conscious experience. In a recently submitted paper, we have however found that both methods are problematic and seem less suited to measure consciousness than a direct introspective measure. Here, we discuss the methodology and conclusions put forward by Dienes...