Neural Correlates of Visual Consciousness

Abstract

Vision is our primary sense, and seeing is accompanied by visual awareness or subjective experience of the visual world around us. Changes in the visual world often lead to changes in the content of visual awareness, and this is accompanied by changes in neural activity. However, not all neural activity associated with vision is correlated with changes in the contents of visual awareness. Indeed, much of the neural activity underpinning our ability to see remains unconscious and inaccessible to introspection. For example, the detailed computations underlying our ability to see three-dimensional depth are not apparent in awareness, but are just the end result of those computations. Thus, determining the neural correlates of the contents of visual awareness requires an empirical distinction to be made between neural activity that is correlated with the contents of visual awareness and that correlated only with unconscious processes. This chapter focuses on how recent studies of the visual system in humans have contributed to our emerging knowledge and understanding of the neural correlates of the contents of visual awareness. © 2009 Copyright