Abstract
In hearing, two neural correlates of awareness are the auditory awareness negativity (AAN) and the late positivity (LP). These correlates of auditory awareness are typically observed with tasks in which subjects are required to report their awareness with manual responses. Thus, the correlates may be confounded by this manual response requirement. We manipulated the response requirement in a tone detection task (N = 52). Tones were presented at each subject’s individual awareness threshold while high-density electroencephalography (EEG) activity was recorded. In one response condition, subjects pushed a button if they were aware of the tone and withheld responding if they were unaware of the tone. In the other condition, subjects pushed a button if they were unaware of the tone and withheld responding if they were aware of the tone. To capture AAN and LP, difference waves were computed between aware and unaware trials, separately for trials in which responses were required and trials in which responses were not required. Results suggest that AAN and LP are unaffected by the response requirement. These findings imply that in hearing, early and late correlates of awareness are not confounded by a manual response requirement. Furthermore, the results suggest that AAN originates from bilateral auditory cortices, supporting the view that AAN is a neural correlate of localized recurrent processing in early sensory areas.
Highlights
How does the brain enable the experience of seeing a picture or hearing a tone? This question has been investigated with threshold tasks (Koivisto and Revonsuo, 2010)
The main results were that awareness negativity (AAN) and late positivity (LP) were present for response trials and for no-response trials, and that there was no apparent difference between response trials and no-response trials for either AAN or LP
The preregistered Bayesian analyses provided inconclusive evidence regarding any effect of a response requirement on AAN (BF01 = 2.0)
Summary
This question has been investigated with threshold tasks (Koivisto and Revonsuo, 2010). In these tasks, a stimulus is presented at the individual awareness threshold: the level at which a subject reports being aware of the stimulus half of the time. NCCs have been studied with event-related potentials (ERPs). These potentials are timelocked responses derived from electroencephalography (EEG). As such, they have excellent temporal resolution (Luck, 2014). Two ERPs have been reported (Koivisto and Revonsuo, 2010; Eklund and Wiens, 2018): a negative difference wave about 200 ms after visual onset at occipital electrodes [visual awareness negativity (VAN)], and a positive difference wave about 300 ms after visual onset at parietal electrodes [late positivity (LP)]
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