Annual review of vision science
September 2026
Michael A Cohen
Visual experience feels seamless and complete, yet evidence shows that a surprising amount of information regularly goes unnoticed. Three of the largest bottlenecks constraining visual processing include retinal sampling, cortical organization, and attentional selection. The perceptual consequences of these bottlenecks are revealed by phenomena such as inattentional blindness and visual...
Cerebral Cortex
November 5, 2024
Michael A Cohen, Cole Dembski, Kevin Ortego et al.
20 citations
What are the neural processes associated with perceptual awareness that are distinct from preconscious sensory encoding and postperceptual processes such as reporting an experience? Using electroencephalography and a no-report visual masking paradigm, we manipulated stimulus visibility by varying the time between stimuli and masks in linear steps (17, 33, 50, 67, and 83 ms). Awareness increased...
Psychological Science
August 31, 2023
Michael A Cohen, Jonathan Keefe, Timothy F Brady
Does sensory information reach conscious awareness in a discrete, all-or-nothing manner or a gradual, continuous manner? To answer this question, we examined behavioral performance across four different paradigms that manipulate visual awareness: the attentional blink, backward masking, the Sperling iconic memory paradigm, and retro-cuing. We then asked how well we could account for...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
August 1, 2011
Michael A Cohen, Daniel C. Dennett
Numerous theories of consciousness hold that there are separate neural correlates of conscious experience and cognitive function, aligning with the assumption that there are 'hard' and 'easy' problems of consciousness. Here, we argue that any neurobiological theory based on an experience/function division cannot be empirically confirmed or falsified and is thus outside the scope of science. A...