Abstract
The neural correlates of visual awareness are elusive because of its fleeting nature. Here we have addressed this issue by using single trial statistical “brain reading” of neurophysiological event related (ERP) signatures of conscious perception of visual attributes with different levels of saliency. Behavioral reports were taken at every trial in 4 experiments addressing conscious access to color, luminance, and local phase offset cues. We found that single trial neurophysiological signatures of target presence can be observed around 300 ms at central parietal sites. Such signatures are significantly related with conscious perception, and their probability is related to sensory saliency levels. These findings identify a general neural correlate of conscious perception at the single trial level, since conscious perception can be decoded as such independently of stimulus salience and fluctuations of threshold levels. This approach can be generalized to successfully detect target presence in other individuals.
Highlights
Event related cognitive studies are in general based on the interpretation of average responses to many repetitions of a given stimulus or condition [1,2,3,4]
We identified a neural correlate of conscious processing of single trial sensory events
The results matched the prediction, the classifier being able to detect the target presence significantly and well above chance only for the graded supraliminal saliency levels models. It this study we found evidence for a general conscious perception signal which can be robustly ‘‘read out’’ across experiments and even subjects
Summary
Event related cognitive studies are in general based on the interpretation of average responses to many repetitions of a given stimulus or condition [1,2,3,4]. This renders the direct identification of the neural correlates of visual awareness difficult, because levels of awareness are often fleeting [5]. The direct identification of the neural correlates of single perceptual representation moments would allow the understanding of their neurophysiological underpinnings and if detected in a statistically robust manner, they might even be used to predict target presence in other individuals. One could generalize across subjects the neurophysiological signatures of such representations
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