Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision
The development of robust frameworks to understand how the human brain represents conscious and unconscious perceptual contents is paramount to make progress in the neuroscience of consciousness. Recent functional MRI studies using multi-voxel pattern classification analyses showed that unconscious...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Ubiquity Press
2025-04-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Cognition |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://account.journalofcognition.org/index.php/up-j-jc/article/view/443 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1849734697618243584 |
|---|---|
| author | Ning Mei David Soto |
| author_facet | Ning Mei David Soto |
| author_sort | Ning Mei |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The development of robust frameworks to understand how the human brain represents conscious and unconscious perceptual contents is paramount to make progress in the neuroscience of consciousness. Recent functional MRI studies using multi-voxel pattern classification analyses showed that unconscious contents could be decoded from brain activity patterns. However, decoding does not imply a full understanding of neural representations. Here we re-analysed data from a high-precision fMRI study coupled with representational similarity analysis based on convolutional neural network models to provide a detailed information-based approach to neural representations of both unconscious and conscious perceptual content. The results showed that computer vision model representations strongly predicted brain responses in ventral visual cortex and in fronto-parietal regions to both conscious and unconscious contents. Moreover, this pattern of results generalised when the models were trained and tested with different participants. Remarkably, these observations results held even when the analysis was restricted to observers that showed null perceptual sensitivity. In light of the highly distributed brain representation of unconscious information, we suggest that the functional role of fronto-parietal cortex in conscious perception is unlikely to be related to the broadcasting of information, as proposed by the global neuronal workspace theory, and may instead relate to the generation of meta-representations as proposed by higher-order theories. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-84ffc03784d34586a0cfeb1bf7cb2cd8 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2514-4820 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Cognition |
| spelling | doaj-art-84ffc03784d34586a0cfeb1bf7cb2cd82025-08-20T03:07:44ZengUbiquity PressJournal of Cognition2514-48202025-04-0181343410.5334/joc.443442Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious VisionNing Mei0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7864-5795David Soto1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0205-7513School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, No. 3688, Nanhai Avenue, Shenzhen 518060Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, BilbaoThe development of robust frameworks to understand how the human brain represents conscious and unconscious perceptual contents is paramount to make progress in the neuroscience of consciousness. Recent functional MRI studies using multi-voxel pattern classification analyses showed that unconscious contents could be decoded from brain activity patterns. However, decoding does not imply a full understanding of neural representations. Here we re-analysed data from a high-precision fMRI study coupled with representational similarity analysis based on convolutional neural network models to provide a detailed information-based approach to neural representations of both unconscious and conscious perceptual content. The results showed that computer vision model representations strongly predicted brain responses in ventral visual cortex and in fronto-parietal regions to both conscious and unconscious contents. Moreover, this pattern of results generalised when the models were trained and tested with different participants. Remarkably, these observations results held even when the analysis was restricted to observers that showed null perceptual sensitivity. In light of the highly distributed brain representation of unconscious information, we suggest that the functional role of fronto-parietal cortex in conscious perception is unlikely to be related to the broadcasting of information, as proposed by the global neuronal workspace theory, and may instead relate to the generation of meta-representations as proposed by higher-order theories.https://account.journalofcognition.org/index.php/up-j-jc/article/view/443consciousnessfmrivisual perception |
| spellingShingle | Ning Mei David Soto Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision Journal of Cognition consciousness fmri visual perception |
| title | Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision |
| title_full | Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision |
| title_fullStr | Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision |
| title_full_unstemmed | Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision |
| title_short | Brain Representation in Conscious and Unconscious Vision |
| title_sort | brain representation in conscious and unconscious vision |
| topic | consciousness fmri visual perception |
| url | https://account.journalofcognition.org/index.php/up-j-jc/article/view/443 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ningmei brainrepresentationinconsciousandunconsciousvision AT davidsoto brainrepresentationinconsciousandunconsciousvision |