Streams and consciousness: visual awareness and the brain

摘要: Vision is our most powerful sense and, arguably, it gives us vivid sensory and imaginal experiences. It also one of the best understood systems in contemporary neuroscience. Yet, contrary to both traditional assumptions phenomenological intuition, recent research has shown that vision not a monolithic system creates single general-purpose representation brain. For example, selective brain damage can compromise visuomotor control while leaving perception intact, elsewhere visual intact. Thus, becoming apparent we have two (largely) separate systems. One them dedicated rapid accurate guidance movements: complex system, yet lies outside realm conscious awareness. The other seems provide perceptual phenomenology, although its primary purpose probably suitably coded inputs for storage retrieval from memory. According this conceptualization, be seen as serving behaviour, but each does so on different time scale. Recent studies suggest neuropsychological humans play central role bridging gap between neurobiological monkey's search narrow down mechanisms mediate