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The links between attention and awareness| old_uid | 9504 |
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| title | The links between attention and awareness |
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| start_date | 2011/01/13 |
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| schedule | 13h30 |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Attention has long been considered to be the organizing function that brings relevant information to the forefront of our conscious mind. This in turn enables us to control our actions, according to our internal goals. Attention, awareness and control therefore appear to be tightly related: an attended stimulus reaches awareness, subsequently leading to a decision whether or not to act. In particular, neural amplification by attention is thought be a crucial factor for a stimulus to reach awareness. In this view, the typical enhancement of neural responses to attended stimuli would increase their effective contrast during visual processing and therefore facilitate conscious access. Surprisingly, this intuitively appealing assumption has never been directed tested. We performed a series of experiments in normal subjects as well as in blindsight patient GY in which we manipulated both attention and visual awareness, and repeatdely observed a double dissociation, at the neural level, between attention and awareness. Our results therefore point toward a double dissociation between attention and visual awareness at the neural level, a conclusion that calls for a revision of the respective definitions of these two major cognitive functions. |
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| responsibles | Loevenbruck, Welby |
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