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55Consciousness and modality: On the possible preserved visual consciousness in blindsight subjectsConsciousness and Cognition 20 (4): 1855-1859. 2011.In a recent paper, Brogaard presents counter-arguments to the conclusions of an experiment with blindsight subject GR. She argues that contrary to the apparent findings that GR’s preserved visual abilities relate to degraded visual experiences, she is in fact fully unconscious of the stimuli she correctly identifies. In this paper, we present arguments and evidence why Brogaard’s argument does not succeed in its purpose. We suggest that not only is relevant empirical evidence in opposition to Br…Read more
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56Unravelling intention: Distal intentions increase the subjective sense of agencyConsciousness and Cognition 22 (3): 810-815. 2013.Experimental studies investigating the contribution of conscious intention to the generation of a sense of agency for one’s own actions tend to rely upon a narrow definition of intention. Often it is operationalized as the conscious sensation of wanting to move right before movement. Existing results and discussion are therefore missing crucial aspects of intentions, namely intention as the conscious sensation of wanting to move in advance of the movement. In the present experiment we used an in…Read more
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27This article presents the view that the problem of consciousness per definition can not be seen as a strictly scientific or strictly philosophical problem. The first idea, especially, leads to important difficulties: First of all, the idea has in most cases implied some rather superficial reductionistic or functionalistic a priori assumptions, and, secondly, it can be shown that some of the most commonly used empirical methods in these regards are inadequate. Especially so in the case of c…Read more
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30Consciousness studies: The view from psychology (review)British Journal of Psychology 97 (3): 425-438. 2006.
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37A TMS study of the ventral projections from v1 with implications for the finding of neural correlates of consciousnessBrain and Cognition 54 (1): 58-64. 2004.
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196Measuring consciousness: relating behavioural and neurophysiological approachesTrends in Cognitive Sciences 12 (8): 314-321. 2008.
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94Optimizing subjective measures of consciousnessConsciousness and Cognition 19 (2): 682-684. 2010.Dienes and Seth (2010) conclude that confidence ratings and post-decision wagering are two comparable and recommendable measures of conscious experience. In a recently submitted paper, we have however found that both methods are problematic and seem less suited to measure consciousness than a direct introspective measure. Here, we discuss the methodology and conclusions put forward by Dienes and Seth, and why we think the two experiments end up with so different recommendations.
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24Deaf hearing: Implicit discrimination of auditory content in a patient with mixed hearing lossPhilosophical Psychology 30 (1-2): 21-43. 2017.We describe a patient LS, profoundly deaf in both ears from birth, with underdeveloped superior temporal gyri. Without hearing aids, LS displays no ability to detect sounds below a fixed threshold of 60 dBs, which classifies him as clinically deaf. Under these no-hearing-aid conditions, when presented with a forced-choice paradigm in which he is asked to consciously respond, he is unable to make above-chance judgments about the presence or location of sounds. However, he is able to make above-ch…Read more
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35Measuring and testing awareness of emotional face expressionsConsciousness and Cognition 22 (3): 806-809. 2013.Comparison of behavioural measures of consciousness has attracted much attention recently. In a recent article, Szczepanowski et al. conclude that confidence ratings predict accuracy better than both the perceptual awareness scale and post-decision wagering when using stimuli with emotional content . Although we find the study interesting, we disagree with the conclusion that CR is superior to PAS because of two methodological issues. First, the conclusion is not based on a formal test. We perfo…Read more
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95Is conscious perception gradual or dichotomous? A comparison of report methodologies during a visual taskConsciousness and Cognition 15 (4): 700-708. 2006.In a recent article, [Sergent, C. & Dehaene, S. . Is consciousness a gradual phenomenon? Evidence for an all-or-none bifurcation during the attentional blink, Psychological Science, 15, 720–729] claim to give experimental support to the thesis that there is a clear transition between conscious and unconscious perception. This idea is opposed to theoretical arguments that we should think of conscious perception as a continuum of clarity, with e.g., fringe conscious states [Mangan, B. . Sensation’…Read more
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49Partial awareness distinguishes between measuring conscious perception and conscious content: Reply to Dienes and SethConsciousness and Cognition 19 (4): 1081-1083. 2010.In their comment on Sandberg, Timmermans, Overgaard, and Cleeremans , Dienes and Seth argue that increased sensitivity of the Perceptual Awareness Scale is a consequence of the scale being less exclusive rather than more exhaustive. According to Dienes and Seth, this is because PAS may measure some conscious content, though not necessarily relevant conscious content, “If one saw a square but was only aware of seeing a flash of something, then one has not consciously seen a square.” In this reply…Read more
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2Visual experience and blindsight: A methodological reviewExperimental Brain Research 209 473-479. 2011.Blindsight is classically defined as residual visual capacity, e.g., to detect and identify visual stimuli, in the total absence of perceptual awareness following lesions to V1. However, whereas most experiments have investigated what blindsight patients can and cannot do, the literature contains several, often contradictory, remarks about remaining visual experience. This review examines closer these remarks as well as experiments that directly approach the nature of possibly spared visual expe…Read more
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28On the encompassing of the behaviour of manBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (5): 615-616. 2003.One supposition underlying the Anderson & Lebiere target article is that the maximally broad “encompassing of its subject matter – the behavior of man” is regarded as an unquestioned quality criterion for guiding cognitive research. One might argue for an explicit specification of the limitations of a given paradigm, rather than extending it to apply to as many domains as possible
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53Cognitive and non-cognitive conceptions of consciousnessTrends in Cognitive Sciences 16 (3): 137. 2012.
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112Measuring consciousness: Is one measure better than the other?Consciousness and Cognition 19 (4): 1069-1078. 2010.What is the best way of assessing the extent to which people are aware of a stimulus? Here, using a masked visual identification task, we compared three measures of subjective awareness: The Perceptual Awareness Scale , through which participants are asked to rate the clarity of their visual experience; confidence ratings , through which participants express their confidence in their identification decisions, and Post-decision wagering , in which participants place a monetary wager on their deci…Read more
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32Special Issue on the Return of Subjectivity Edited by Dan ZahaviPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 3 399-400. 2004.
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52Introspection distinct from first-order experiencesJournal of Consciousness Studies 11 (7-8): 11--7. 2004.As is the case with other concepts about mental affairs, the concept of introspection has many different interpretations. Some seem to consider introspecting a perceptive act and others see it as a thinking activity . For the present purpose, we will claim it as a common understanding in all such theories that introspection presupposes consciousness . States of consciousness, broadly discussed in the philosophical and empirical literature as first order states of consciousness, are states in whi…Read more
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Aalborg UniversityRegular Faculty
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |