Consciousness theory rocked

• Autores: Anil Ananthaswamy
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3046, 2015, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Brian Silverstein and Michael Snodgrass at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and colleagues wondered if P3b could be detected during unconscious processing of stimuli. The study involved the oddball paradigm, in which one stimulus is presented frequently, interspersed with an oddball or rare stimulus. The rare stimulus produced a strong P3b signal, widely spread across the brain. Even though they don't know what the stimuli are, the brain is still able to recognize that there is something unexpected that occurs, says Silverstein. The team interprets the P3b signal as evidence for complex, sustained, unconscious brain activity, suggesting that P3b is not a neural correlate of consciousness, thus contradicting the global neuronal workspace theory.