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British Dental Journal Nov 2021
Topics: Awareness
PubMed: 34772997
DOI: 10.1038/s41415-021-3618-3 -
British Journal of Anaesthesia Aug 1979
Topics: Anesthesia, General; Anesthesia, Obstetrical; Awareness; Cesarean Section; Cognition; Female; Humans; Pregnancy
PubMed: 497066
DOI: 10.1093/bja/51.8.711 -
Scientific Reports Mar 2018Human self-awareness is arguably the most important and revealing question of modern sciences. Converging theoretical perspectives link self-awareness and social...
Human self-awareness is arguably the most important and revealing question of modern sciences. Converging theoretical perspectives link self-awareness and social abilities in human beings. In particular, mutual engagement during social interactions-or social contact-would boost self-awareness. Yet, empirical evidence for this effect is scarce. We recently showed that the perception of eye contact induces enhanced bodily self-awareness. Here, we aimed at extending these findings by testing the influence of social contact in auditory and tactile modalities, in order to demonstrate that social contact enhances bodily self-awareness irrespective of sensory modality. In a first experiment, participants were exposed to hearing their own first name (as compared to another unfamiliar name and noise). In a second experiment, human touch (as compared to brush touch and no-touch) was used as the social contact cue. In both experiments, participants demonstrated more accurate rating of their bodily reactions in response to emotional pictures following the social contact condition-a proxy of bodily self-awareness. Further analyses indicated that the effect of social contact was comparable across tactile, auditory and visual modalities. These results provide the first direct empirical evidence in support of the essential social nature of human self-awareness.
Topics: Auditory Perception; Awareness; Emotions; Female; Humans; Male; Self Concept; Social Behavior; Touch Perception
PubMed: 29520008
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-22497-1 -
Journal of Vision Feb 2023Humans differ in the amount of time they direct their gaze toward different types of stimuli. Individuals' preferences are known to be reliable and can predict various...
Humans differ in the amount of time they direct their gaze toward different types of stimuli. Individuals' preferences are known to be reliable and can predict various cognitive and affective processes. However, it remains unclear whether humans are aware of their visual gaze preferences and are able to report it. In this study, across three different tasks and without prior warning, participants were asked to estimate the amount of time they had looked at a certain visual content (e.g., faces or texts) at the end of each experiment. The findings show that people can report accurately their visual gaze preferences. The implications are discussed in the context of visual perception, metacognition, and the development of applied diagnostic tools based on eye tracking.
Topics: Humans; Fixation, Ocular; Visual Perception; Awareness
PubMed: 36799868
DOI: 10.1167/jov.23.2.9 -
Neuron Jun 2017Desynchronized brain states are known to be associated with arousal and increased awareness, but the exact mechanisms are unknown. Here, we show that neuronal networks... (Review)
Review
Desynchronized brain states are known to be associated with arousal and increased awareness, but the exact mechanisms are unknown. Here, we show that neuronal networks displaying asynchronous irregular (AI) activity can implement a low-level form of awareness, due to their specific responsiveness properties. We emphasize the importance of the conductance state and stochasticity to explain these properties. We suggest that the purpose of cortical structures is to generate AI states with optimal responsiveness, to be globally aware of external stimuli.
Topics: Arousal; Awareness; Brain; Cerebral Cortex; Electroencephalography; Electroencephalography Phase Synchronization; Humans; Nerve Net
PubMed: 28595044
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.04.001 -
Spikes, BOLD, attention, and awareness: a comparison of electrophysiological and fMRI signals in V1.Journal of Vision Dec 2011Early fMRI studies comparing results from fMRI and electrophysiological experiments support the notion that the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal reliably... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study Review
Early fMRI studies comparing results from fMRI and electrophysiological experiments support the notion that the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal reliably follows the spiking activity of an underlying neuronal population averaged across a small region in space and a brief period in time. However, more recent studies focusing on higher level cognitive factors such as attention and visual awareness report striking discrepancies between the fMRI response in humans and electrophysiological signals in macaque early visual areas. Four hypotheses are discussed that can explain the discrepancies between the two methods: (1) the BOLD signal follows local field potential (LFP) signals closer than spikes, and only the LFP is modulated by top-down factors, (2) the BOLD signal is reflecting electrophysiological signals that are occurring later in time due to feedback delay, (3) the BOLD signal is more sensitive than traditional electrophysiological methods due to massive pooling by the hemodynamic coupling process, and finally (4) there is no real discrepancy, and instead, weak but reliable effects on firing rates may be obscured by differences in experimental design and interpretation of results across methods.
Topics: Attention; Awareness; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Photic Stimulation; Visual Cortex
PubMed: 22199162
DOI: 10.1167/11.5.12 -
NeuroImage Nov 2022There is an ongoing debate on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) in the attentional blink (AB). Theoretical accounts propose that NCC during the attentional...
There is an ongoing debate on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) in the attentional blink (AB). Theoretical accounts propose that NCC during the attentional blink occur late in the processing hierarchy and that this quality is specific to the AB. We investigated this question by recording event-related potentials during an AB experiment with faces as T2. We analyzed ERPs to T2 stimuli inside (short lag) and outside (long lag) the AB window after carefully calibrating T2 stimuli to ensure equal visibility ratings across lags. We found that the N170, the visual awareness negativity (VAN), and the P3b showed an increased amplitude for seen compared to unseen face stimuli regardless of stimulus lag and that all these components scale linearly with subjective visibility. These findings suggest similar early and late mechanisms of graded perceptual awareness within and outside the AB across perceptual (N170, VAN) and post-perceptual (P3b) processing stages.
Topics: Humans; Attentional Blink; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials; Consciousness; Face; Awareness
PubMed: 36167269
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119652 -
British Journal of Anaesthesia Jun 2008
Topics: Anesthesia, General; Anesthetics, General; Awareness; Humans; Intraoperative Period; Memory; Monitoring, Intraoperative
PubMed: 18483111
DOI: 10.1093/bja/aen130 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Apr 2020To date it is poorly understood how and when deviance processing interacts with awareness and task relevance. Furthermore, an important issue in the study of...
To date it is poorly understood how and when deviance processing interacts with awareness and task relevance. Furthermore, an important issue in the study of consciousness is the prevalent confound of conscious perception with the requirement of reporting it. This study addresses these topics using a no-report inattentional blindness paradigm with a visual oddball sequence of geometrical shapes presented to male and female human participants. Electrophysiological responses were obtained in three physically identical Phases A-C that differed only with respect to the instructions: (A) participants were uninformed about the shapes and attended an unrelated foreground task (inattentional blind), (B) were informed about the shapes but still attended the foreground task, and (C) attended the shapes. Conscious processing of shapes was indexed by the visual awareness negativity but not a P3. Deviance processing was associated with the visual mismatch negativity independently of consciousness and task relevance. The oddball P3, however, only emerged when the stimuli were task relevant, and was absent for consciously perceived but task irrelevant stimuli. The P3 thus does not represent a reliable marker of stimulus awareness. This result pattern supports the view of hierarchical predictive processing, where lower levels display automatic deviance processing, whereas higher levels require attention and task relevance. To react to potentially important changes in our environment it is fundamental to detect deviations from regularities of sensory input. It has yet to be understood how awareness and task relevance of this input interact with deviance processing. We investigated the role of awareness in deviance detection while at the same time circumventing the confound of awareness and report by means of a no-report paradigm. Our results suggest that early processes are elicited automatically, whereas, contrary to prominent theories, late processes do not depend on awareness but on task-based attention.
Topics: Adult; Attention; Awareness; Brain; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials; Female; Humans; Male; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 32122954
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2077-19.2020 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Dec 2014Compromised self-awareness of illness-related deficits and behaviors in psychopathology (e.g., schizophrenia) has been associated with deficient functioning of cortical... (Review)
Review
Compromised self-awareness of illness-related deficits and behaviors in psychopathology (e.g., schizophrenia) has been associated with deficient functioning of cortical midline regions including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), implicated in personal relevance. Here, we review and critically analyze recent evidence to suggest that vmPFC abnormalities could similarly underlie deficient tagging of personal relevance in drug addiction, evidenced by a constellation of behaviors encompassing drug-biased attention, negative outcome insensitivity, self-report/behavior dissociation, and social inappropriateness. This novel framework might clarify, for example, why drug-addicted individuals often ruin long-standing relationships or forego important job opportunities while continuing to engage in uncontrolled drug-taking. Therapeutic interventions targeting personal relevance and associated vmPFC functioning could enhance self-awareness and facilitate more adaptive behavior in this chronically relapsing psychopathology.
Topics: Awareness; Brain; Humans; Self Concept; Substance-Related Disorders
PubMed: 25278368
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.09.003