Opportunities and challenges for a maturing science of consciousness

Description:

Scientific research on consciousness is critical to multiple scientific, clinical, and ethical issues. The growth of the field could also be beneficial to several areas including neurology and mental health research. To achieve this goal, we need to set funding priorities carefully and address problems such as job creation and potential media misrepresentation.

Authors:

• Matthias Michel

• Diane Beck

• Ned Block

• Hal Blumenfeld

• Richard Brown

• David Carmel

• Marisa Carrasco

• Mazviita Chirimuuta

• Marvin Chun

• Axel Cleeremans

• Stanislas Dehaene

• Stephen M. Fleming

• Chris Frith

• Patrick Haggard

• Biyu J. He

• Cecilia Heyes

• Melvyn A. Goodale

• Liz Irvine

• Mitsuo Kawato

• Robert Kentridge

• Jean-Remi King

• Robert T. Knight

• Sid Kouider

• Victor Lamme

• Dominique Lamy

• Hakwan Lau

• Steven Laureys

• Joseph LeDoux

• Ying-Tung Lin

• Kayuet Liu

• Stephen L. Macknik

• Susana Martinez-Conde

• George A. Mashour

• Lucia Melloni

• Lisa Miracchi

• Myrto Mylopoulos

• Lionel Naccache

• Adrian M. Owen

• Richard E. Passingham

• Luiz Pessoa

• Megan A. K. Peters

• Dobromir Rahnev

• Tony Ro

• David Rosenthal

• Yuka Sasaki

• Claire Sergent

• Guillermo Solovey

• Nicholas D. Schiff

• Anil Seth

• Catherine Tallon-Baudry

• Marco Tamietto

• Frank Tong

• Simon van Gaal

• Alexandra Vlassova

• Takeo Watanabe

• Josh Weisberg

• Karen Yan

• Masatoshi Yoshida

Date: 2019

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0531-8

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Should a Few Null Findings Falsify Prefrontal Theories of Conscious Perception?

ABSTRACT

Is activity in prefrontal cortex (PFC) critical for conscious perception? Major theories of consciousness make distinct predictions about the role of PFC, providing an opportunity to arbitrate between these views empirically. Here we address three common misconceptions: (1) PFC lesions do not affect subjective perception; (2) PFC activity does not reflect specific perceptual content; and (3) PFC involvement in studies of perceptual awareness is solely driven by the need to make reports required by the experimental tasks rather than subjective experience per se. These claims are incompatible with empirical findings, unless one focuses only on studies using methods with limited sensitivity. The literature highlights PFC's essential role in enabling the subjective experience in perception, contra the objective capacity to perform visual tasks; conflating the two can also be a source of confusion.

AUTHORS

• Brian Odegaard

• Robert T. Knight 

• Hakwan Lau

Date: 2017

DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3217-16.2017

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