台大心理系

How conscious experience is realized in neuronal activity is one major unsolved problem in science. Neuroscientists have focused on finding human neural correlates of consciousness for over two decades. Here I go beyond this correlational paradigm and use fMRI to investigate the causal relationship between cortical activity and visual awareness. First, I will demonstrate that a change in visual awareness of a constant visual input can lead to changes of neural activity in visual cortices. Second, conversely, I will show that neural activities that immediately precede stimulus presentation can bias/predict the contents of visual awareness during binocular rivalry. These findings go beyond mere correlates of consciousness to reveal candidate areas that are causally involved in realizing conscious experience.