Perception, attention, and consciousness
How brain processes give rise to conscious perception is a key question for the relationship between brain and mind. This topic is jointly addressed by several coordinated research groups in the Mind and Brain School.
Specifically, our work is on characterizing the information flow from basic low-level sensory signal processing all the way up to conscious perception. This scope is made possible by the combination of research approaches in Berlin, ranging from studies of sensory processing in animals to human neuroimaging studies directly addressing conscious and unconscious processing. Of special importance is also the tight integration with computational modeling and philosophy, two fields that provide important analytical and conceptual frameworks for research on the neural correlates of consciousness. We will work on four major projects:
Sensory signal processing.
The first group of projects on “sensory signal processing” does not yet address a Mind and Brain topic (in the narrow sense), however it provides crucial insight into basic mechanisms underlying the first steps in the flow of information eventually leading to conscious perception. Using the many different recording techniques available in Berlin we are able to study animal and human information processing in visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems. These investigations clarify fundamental computational principles of sensory information processing, which have played a key role in research on conscious perception.
Determinants of conscious and unconscious perception.
The second field, “determinants of conscious and unconscious perception”, addresses the fundamental question at which stage neural information processing leads to conscious perception, and how conscious and unconscious information processing might differ in terms of their underlying neural mechanisms. Of special importance is our combination of research on multiple modalities (vision, audition, touch) to reveal potential general, supramodal determinants of conscious perception.
Neural encoding of conscious perception.
Our third key field, “neural encoding of conscious perception”, addresses a complementary question: which brain areas encode specific types of sensations in a fashion that can explain how the external world “appears” to human observers. At some point in processing, sensory signals that reflect physical stimulus parameters are transformed into percept-based signals that reflect a person’s conscious perception. In most cases physical and perceptual aspects are highly correlated, but in certain cases the two aspects can be experimentally dissociated. Our studies of perceptual illusions where the representation of external stimuli is not veridical but distorted provide such a case. Remarkably, a recently emerging technique, the application of machine learning and decoding techniques to human neuroimaging signals, has also provided a powerful framework for studying encoding of conscious perception.
Neurophilosophy of phenomenal consciousness.
The fourth key field, “neurophilosophy of phenomenal consciousness”, plays the important role of providing theoretical frameworks for integrating and focusing the empirical research, while analyzing the implications for theories of the relationship between mind and brain. Taken together these research projects offer a unique combination of empirical, computational and philosophical expertise that is already providing important insights into the neural mechanisms that lead from low-level sensory signals to conscious perception of our external world.
Special Newsletter issue on consciousness research
(View or download Newsletter pdf and see section Newsletter on this website)
Key publications on this topic:
Blankenburg F., Ruff C.C., Deichmann R., Rees G., Driver J. (2006)
The cutaneous rabbit illusion affects human primary sensory cortex somatotopically. PLoS Biol 4:e69.
Blankenburg F., Taskin B., Ruben J., Moosmann M., Ritter P., Curio G., Villringer A. (2003)
Imperceptible stimuli and sensory processing impediment. Science 299:1864.
Feldman D.E. and Brecht M. (2005)
Map plasticity in somatosensory cortex. Science 310:810-815.
Gollisch T., Herz A.M. (2005)
Disentangling sub-millisecond processes within an auditory transduction chain. PLoS Biol 3:e8.
Haynes J.D., Rees G. (2005)
Predicting the orientation of invisible stimuli from activity in human primary visual cortex. Nature Neuroscience 8:686-691.
Haynes J.D., Rees G. (2005)
Predicting the stream of consciousness from activity in human visual cortex. Current Biology 15:1301-1307.
Machens C.K., Schütze H., Franz A., Kolesnikova O., Stemmler M.B., Ronacher B., Herz A.V.M. (2003)
Single auditory neurons rapidly discriminate conspecific communication signals. Nature Neuroscience 6:341-2.
Pauen M. (2000)
Painless Pain. Property Dualism and the Causal Role of Phenomenal Consciousness. American Philosophical Quarterly 37:51-64.
Perler D. (2004)
Inside and Outside the Mind. Cartesian Representations Reconsidered, in: Perception and Reality. From Descartes to the Present, ed. by R. Schumacher, Paderborn: Mentis, 69-87.
Schubert R., Blankenburg F., Lemm S., Villringer A., Curio G. (2006)
Now you feel it – now you don’t: ERP correlates of somatosensory awareness.
Psychophysiology 43:31.
Schwabe L., Obermayer K. (2005)
Learning top-down gain control of feature selectivity in a recurrent network model of a cortial area. Vision Res, 45, 3202-3209
