The moment of awareness influences the content of awareness in orientation repulsion

Conscious Cogn. 2023 Nov 15;116:103604. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103604. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThrough the neurally evolving process of dynamic contextual modulation of perceptual contents, it remains unclear how the content of awareness is determined. Here we quantified the visual illusion of orientation repulsion, wherein the target appears tilted against the surrounding's orientation, and examined whether its extent changed when the target awareness was quickened by a preceding flanker. Independently of spatial cueing, repulsion was reduced when the flanker preceded the target by 100 ms compared with when they appeared simultaneously. We confirmed that the preceding flanker quickened the awareness of a nearby target relative to distant ones by 40 ms. Furthermore, the preceding flanker that was greater than 7 degrees away from the target still evoked such reduction of repulsion. These findings imply that the content of awareness is determined by the temporal interaction of two distinct processes: one controls the moment of awareness, and the other represents the perceptual content.PMID:37976782 | DOI:10.1016/j.concog.2023.103604

Source: Consciousness and Cognition - November 17, 2023 Category: Neurology Authors: Tomoya Nakamura Ikuya Murakami Source Type: research