Dissociation between awareness and spatial coding: evidence from unilateral neglect.
Barbara Treccani, Roberto Cubelli, Roberta Sellaro, Carlo Umiltà, Sergio Della Sala
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience April 2012 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00185 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1 |
| Population | A patient with left unilateral neglect following brain damage |
| Key findings | A patient with left neglect, unaware of contralesional stimuli, could still process their color and position, but these features were processed separately rather than bound together, unlike consciously perceived ipsilesional stimuli. The authors argue that individual features, including position, can be processed without attention or consciousness, and propose that conscious perception depends on binding features into an integrated percept. |
Abstract
Prevalent theories about consciousness propose a causal relation between lack of spatial coding and absence of conscious experience: The failure to code the position of an object is assumed to prevent this object from entering consciousness. This is consistent with influential theories of unilateral neglect following brain damage, according to which spatial coding of neglected stimuli is defective, and this would keep their processing at the nonconscious level. Contrary to this view, we report evidence showing that spatial coding and consciousness can dissociate. A patient with left neglect, who was not aware of contralesional stimuli, was able to process their color and position. However, in contrast to (ipsilesional) consciously perceived stimuli, color and position of neglected stimuli were processed separately. We propose that individual object features, including position, can be processed without attention and consciousness and that conscious perception of an object depends on the binding of its features into an integrated percept.