Spatial attention speeds discrimination without awareness in blindsight
NeuropsychologiaPublished 1 January 2004Open access
Robert W. Kentridge
Citations216
SJR quartileQ2
SJR score0.85
SNIP0.82
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TL;DR
It is shown that although attention may be a necessary precursor to visual awareness it is not a sufficient one and attention cannot, therefore, be a sufficient condition for awareness.
Abstract
An intimate relationship is often assumed between visual attention and visual awareness. Using a subject, patient GY, with the neurological condition of "blindsight" we show that although attention may be a necessary precursor to visual awareness it is not a sufficient one. Using a Posner endogenous spatial cueing paradigm we showed that the time our subject needed to discriminate the orientation of a stimulus was reduced if he was cued to the location of the stimulus. This reaction-time advantage was obtained without any decrease in discrimination accuracy and cannot therefore be attributed to speed-error trade-off or differences in bias between cued and uncued locations. As a result of his condition GY was not aware of the stimuli to which processing was attentionally facilitated. Attention cannot, therefore be a sufficient condition for awareness.
Keywords
Neuroscience
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