Spatial attention speeds discrimination without awareness in blindsight.

Journal article

An intimate relationship is often assumed between visual attention and visual awareness. Using a subject, patient GY, with the neurological condition of "blindsight" we show that although attention may be a necessary precursor to visual awareness it is not a sufficient one. Using a Posner endogenous spatial cueing paradigm we showed that the time our subject needed to discriminate the orientation of a stimulus was reduced if he was cued to the location of the stimulus. This reaction-time advantage was obtained without any decrease in discrimination accuracy and cannot therefore be attributed to speed-error trade-off or differences in bias between cued and uncued locations. As a result of his condition GY was not aware of the stimuli to which processing was attentionally facilitated. Attention cannot, therefore be a sufficient condition for awareness.

Authors: Kentridge, R; Heywood, C; Weiskrantz, L

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Neuropsychologia
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 831-835
• Publication date: 2004-01-01
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.11.001
• EISSN: 1873-3514
• ISSN: 0028-3932
• Language: English
• Keywords: Awareness; Visual Cortex; Blindness; Humans; Adult; Signal Detection, Psychological; Discrimination (Psychology); Brain Damage, Chronic; Vision, Ocular; Visual Fields; Visual Perception; Male; Consciousness; Space Perception; Attention