Towards the neuronal correlate of visual awareness

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 158-164

  Koch, Christof ^a   Braun, Jochen ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AWARENESS; HUMAN; MACACA; NONHUMAN; PRIMATE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; REVIEW; STRIATE CORTEX; VISUAL CORTEX; VISUAL DISCRIMINATION;

EID: 0029924797     PISSN: 09594388     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0959-4388(96)80068-7     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Julesz B: Dialogues on Perception. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press; 1994. Idiosyncratic and very readable scientific autobiography revolving around psychoanatomy, visual perception and its representation in the brain.
2. Crick F: The Astonishing Hypothesis. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons; 1994. This book has helped revitalize the debate concerning the neuronal correlate of consciousness within the general scientific community.
3. Hameroff SR, Kaszniak AW, Scott AC (Eds): Towards a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions and Debates. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press; 1996.
4. Schacter DL: Implicit knowledge: new perspectives on unconscious processing. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1992, 89:11113-11117.
5. Farah M: Perception and awareness after brain damage. Curr Opin Neurobiol 1994, 4:252-255.
6. Farah M: Visual perception and visual awareness after brain damage: a tutorial overview. In Conscious and Unconscious Information Processing: Attention and Performance, vol XV. Edited by Moscovitch M, Umilta C. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press; 1994:37-75. Comprehensive overview of clinical literature pertaining to visual agnosia and other specific disturbances in visual perception.
7. Fendrich R, Wessinger CM, Gazzaniga MS: Residual vision in a scotoma: implications for blindsight Science 1992, 258:1489-1491.
8. Cowey A, Stoerig P: Blindsight in monkeys. Nature 1995, 373:247-249. Behavioral experiments in monkeys with V1 lesions show that when tested on a signal-detection task in their blind field, they classify such stimuli as blank trials. However, in a two-alternative forced-choice detection task, these monkeys respond to stimuli in their blind field. The authors conclude that these monkeys, like patients with striate cortex lesions, show true blindsight rather than just degraded vision.
9. Moore T, Rodman HR, Repp AB, Gross CG: Localization of visual stimuli after striate cortex damage in monkeys: parallels with human blindsight Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1995, 92:8215-8218.
10. Van Essen DC, Gallant JL: Neural mechanisms of form and motion processing in the primate visual system. Neuron 1994, 13:1-10.
11. Ungerleider LG, Haxby JV: 'What' and 'where' in the human brain. Curr Opin Neurobiol 1994, 4:157-165.
12. Zeki S: The motion vision of the blind. Neuroimage 1995, 2:231-235.
13. Bullier J, Girard P, Salin P-A: The role of area 17 in the transfer of information to extrastriate visual cortex. In Cerebral Cortex, vol 10. Edited by Peters A, Rockland KS. New York: Plenum Press; 1994:301-330. Landmark review of the anatomy and the physiology (primarily in monkey) of pathways into extrastriate visual cortices that by-pass primary visual cortex.
14. Rodman HR, Gross CG, Albright TD: Afferent basis of visual response properties in area MT of the macaque. I. Effects of striate cortex removal. J Neurosci 1989, 9:2033-2050.
15. Rodman HR, Gross CG, Albright TD: Afferent basis of visual response properties in area MT of the macaque. II. Effects of superior colliculus removal. J Neurosci 1990, 10:1154-1164.
16. Girard P, Salin PA, Bullier J: Response selectivity of neurons in area MT of the macaque monkey during reversible inactivation of area V1. J Neurophysiol 1992, 67:1437-1446.
17. Milner AD, Goodale MA: The Visual Brain in Where. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1995. Summarizes psychophysical, electrophysiological and clinical evidence for the hypothesis that visual awareness does not arise from the 'where' pathway to posterior parietal cortex, but is a property of the 'what' pathway to inferior temporal cortex.
18. Stoerig P, Cowey A: Blindsight: neurons and behaviour. In Progress in Brain Research, vol 95. Edited by Hicks TP, Molotchnikoff S, Ono T. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science; 1993:445-459.
19. Hernandez-Gonzalez A, Cavada C, Reinoso-Suarez F: The lateral geniculate nucleus projects to the inferior temporal cortex in the macaque monkey. Neuroreport 1994, 5:2693-2696.
20. Mohler CW, Wurtz RH: Role of striate cortex and superior colliculus in visual guidance of saccadlc eye movements in monkeys. J Neurophysiol 1977, 40:74-94.
21. Ungerleider LG: Functional brain imaging studies of cortical mechanisms for memory. Science 1995, 270:769-775. Comprehensive overview of imaging studies in vision and memory.
22. Barbur JL, Watson JDG, Frackowiak RSJ, Zeki SM: Conscious visual perception without V1. Brain 1993, 116:1293-1302.
23. Weiskrantz L: Blindsight: A Case Study and Implications. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1986.
24. Weiskrantz L, Barbur JL, Sahraie A: Parameters affecting conscious versus unconscious visual discrimination with damage to the visual cortex (V1 ). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1995, 92:6122-6126. Systematic study showing that patient G.Y. has non-visual awareness for motion under certain stimulus conditions (high contrast, fast moving target).
25. Merikle PM: Perception without awareness. Critical issues [comment]. Am Psychol 1992, 47:792-805.
26. Marcel AJ: Conscious and unconscious perception: experiments on visual masking and word recognition. Cogn Psychol 1983, 15:197-237.
27. Graves RE, Jones BS: Conscious visual perceptual awareness vs. non-conscious visual spatial localisation examined with normal subjects using possible analogues of blindsight and neglect Cogn Neuropsychol 1992, 9:487-508.
28. Rock I, Linnett CM, Grant P, Mack A: Perception without attention: results of a new method. Cogn Psychol 1992, 24:502-534.
29. Kolb FC, Braun J: Blindsight in normal observers. Nature 1995, 377:336-339. Introduces paradigm to dissociate visual performance and visual awareness in normal observers. Proposes quantitative psychophysical measure for visual awareness.
30. Qian N, Andersen RA, Adelson EH: Transparent motion perception as detection of unbalanced motion signals. 1. Psychophysics. J Neurosci 1994, 14:7357-7366.
31. ••]. Responses to both stimuli are comparable in area V1; but, in area MT, responses to the 'blindsight, stimulus are much lower. The authors conclude that, in area MT, direction-selective inputs from area V1 are combined in an opponent fashion, so that equal and opposite motion within a V1 receptive field attenuates activity only in MT and not in V1.
32. Leopold DA, Logothetis NK: Activity-changes in early visual cortex reflect monkeys' percepts during binocular rivalry. Nature 1996, 379:549-553. Elegant physiological recordings in a behaving monkey from neurons that correlate with its perception during binocular rivalry.
33. Crick F, Koch C: Are we aware of neural activity in primary visual cortex? Nature 1995, 375:121-123. Argues that the neuronal correlate of consciousness for vision must be mediated by the specific subset of neurons in visual cortices that directly project into frontal cortex. As V1 neurons do not project into these areas, the authors conclude that "we are not aware of neuronal activity in V1."
34. Peterhans E, Von der Heydt R: Subjective contours: bridging the gap between psychophysics and physiology. Trends Neurosci 1991, 14:112-119.
35. Felleman DJ, Van Essen DC: Distributed hierarchical processing In the primate cerebral cortex. Cereb Cortex 1991, 1:1-47.
36. He S, Smallman H, MacLeod DIA: Neural and cortical limits on visual resolution. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1995, 36:2010.
37. Paulesu E, Harrison J, Baron-Cohen S, Watson JDG, Goldstein L, Heather J, Frackowiak RSJ, Frith CD: The physiology of coloured hearing. A PET activation study of colour-word synaesthesia. Brain 1995, 118:661-676. Investigation of color-word synaesthesia in six women using PET brain imaging. They report no striate activity during the 'perception' of colors invoked by spoken words.
38. Kosslyn SM, Thompson WL, Kim IJ, Alpert NM: Topographical representations of mental images in primary visual cortex. Nature 1995, 378:496-498. On the basis of PET, this study reports that normal subjects show activation of primary visual cortex during imagery. Puts to rest a debate on whether or not imagery activates early visual areas.
39. Roland PE, Gulyas B: Visual imagery and visual representation. Trends Neurosci 1994, 17:281-287.
40. Horton JC, Hoyt WF: Quadrantic visual field defects. Brain 1991, 114:1703-1718.
41. Pollen DA: Cortical areas in visual awareness. Nature 1995. 377:293-294.
42. Humphrey GK, Goodale MA, Corbetta M, Aglioti S: The McCollough effect reveals orientation discrimination in a case of cortical blindness. Curr Biol 1995, 5:545-551. Fascinating case study of a patient who is unable to perceive orientation and who cannot distinguish horizontal from vertical; yet, this patient still exhibits the orientation-specific McCullough color aftereffect.
43. Humphrey GK, Goodale MA, Gurnsey R: Orientation discrimination in a visual form agnosic: evidence from the McCollough effect Psychological Sci 1991, 2:331-335.
44. Goodale MA, Milner AD, Jakobson LS, Carey DP: A neurological dissociation between perceiving objects and grasping them. Nature 1991, 349:154-156.
45. Aglioti S, DeSouza JFX, Goodale MA: Size-contrast illusions deceive the eye but not the hand. Curr Biol 1995, 5:679-685.
46. Maunsell JHR: The brain's visual world: representation of visual targets in cerebral cortex. Science 1995, 270:764-769. Physiological review of the way 'salient' objects of behavioral interest are represented in the monkey's extrastriate visual system.
47. Myserson J, Miezin F, Allman J: Binocular rivalry in macaque monkeys and humans: a comparative study in perception. Behav Anal Lett 1981, 1:149-159.
48. Sengpiel F, Blakemore C, Harrad R: Interocular suppression In the primary visual cortex: a possible neural basis of binocular rivalry. Vision Res 1995, 35:179-195.
49. Logothetis NK, Schall J: Neuronal correlates of subjective visual perception. Science 1989, 245:761-763.
50. Zeki S: The distribution of wavelength and orientation selective cells in different areas of monkey visual cortex. Proc R Soc Lond [Biol] 1983, 217:449-470.
51. Schein SJ, Desimone R: Spectral properties of V4 neurons in the macaque. J Neurosci 1990, 10:3369-3389.
52. Heywood CA, Gaffan D, Cowey A: Cerebral achromatopsia in monkeys. Eur J Neurosci 1995, 7:1064-1073.
53. Koch C, Crick F: Some further ideas regarding the neuronal basis of awareness. In Large-Scale Neuronal Theories of the Brain. Edited by Koch C, Davis J. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press; 1994:93-110.
54. Koch C: Visual awareness and the thalamic intralaminar nuclei. Consc Cogn 1995, 4:163-166.
55. Baumgartner G: Where do visual signals become a perception. In The Principles of Design and Operation of the Brain. Edited by Eccles JC, Creutzfeldt O. Vatican City: Pontificia Academia Scientiarum; 1988:99-118.
56. Bogen JE: On the neurophysiology of consciousness. I. An overview. Consc Cogn 1995, 4:52-62. Argues that the subjective aspects of visual and other forms of awareness are mediated by neurons in the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus. Has the virtue of being straightforward to evaluate experimentally.