Lecture 24:

Consciousness
COGS 130: Cognitive Neuroscience
April 28, 2022
Copyright © 2021, Kristina Backer
Outline
• Quick Review of Tuesday’s lecture (Social Cog. 2)
• Consciousness:
• Mind-Brain Problem
• Brain Regions
• Levels of Arousal and Consciousness
• Access to Information
• Announcements
• Review Questions
Review Question 1
• Summarize the Mental State Attribution Theory (aka
Theory Theory).

• Summarize the Experience Sharing Theory

(Simulation Theory).
Mental State Attribution Theory
(aka Theory Theory)

• We rely on our previous experiences and knowledge

about others to generate our own theories about
their mental states.
• These theories are used when mind-reading.

• “The ability to explicitly reason and draw inferences

about [others’] mental states.”
• Zaki & Ochsner, 2012
Experience Sharing Theory
(Simulation Theory)
• We non-consciously mimic others
Understanding how they feel based on our
own experience
Review Question 2
• Based on the fMRI study by Mitchell et al. (2004):
Which brain area has been implicated in forming
impressions about others?
Neural Correlates of
Mental State Attribution
2 Experimental Conditions:
1) Impression Formation:
Infer personality based on the statements
2) Sequencing:
Remember the order of the statements

Mitchell et al., 2004

Review Question 3
• Which brain region is correlated with accuracy when
analyzing ambiguous social scenes?
People with higher accuracy
when judging the valence of
Ambiguous social scenes
also had greater activation
in Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC).

Deuse et al.
2016
Review Question 4
• Which brain areas are activated only when we feel
physical pain (but not when we feel empathetic
pain)?

• Which brain areas are activated when “feeling”

empathetic pain (and in feeling own pain)?
 Feeling Pain vs. No Pain (Self)

Self-Pain

More activity
in Primary and
Secondary Partner-Pain
Somatosensory
Cortex, and
Primary Motor
Cortex for Self-Pain
only. Self-Pain

Partner-Pain
Overlapping Brain Activity when
Feeling Own Pain and Other’s Pain

Self-Pain
Partner-Pain
What is Consciousness?
• Stuart Sutherland (1995) defined Consciousness as:

“The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings;

awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms
that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness
means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness
with self-consciousness – to be conscious it is only
necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness
is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to
specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing
worth reading has been written about it.”
The Mind-Brain Problem of
Consciousness

?
The Mind-Brain Problem of
Consciousness
• Philosophical Approaches:

1) Dualism (Rene Descartes)

- Mind and Brain are 2 Distinct and Separable phenomena.
- Conscious Awareness is non-physical and beyond the scope of
the physical sciences.

2) Materialism
- Both Mind and Brain are physical mediums.
- Understanding the physical workings of the brain will lead
to an understanding of the mind.
The Mind-Brain Problem of
Consciousness
• Consciousness is something that must be
experienced in order to define.

• Sentience:
• Refers to the subjective experience, one’s own
awareness, raw feelings, and first-person perspective of
an experience.
• Qualia: the content of a subjective experience
• What is it like to be someone/something or to do
something?
• (The “Mind” side of the equation.)
The Mind-Brain Problem of
Consciousness

The “Hard Problem” Of Consciousness:

How does neural firing generate sentience (the subjective experience)?
 Consciousness: Brain Regions
1) Core Consciousness:
• Alive
• Awake
• Alert
• Aware of the present moment
(Not concerned with future or
past)

• Relies on Brainstem!
• Damage to the Pons may result
in death, coma, unresponsive
wakefulness syndrome, or
locked-in syndrome.
• Damage to the Thalamus: Awake
but unresponsive.
 Consciousness: Brain Regions
2) Extended Consciousness
• The increasingly complex
contents of conscious
experience, built upon core
consciousness.

• Relies on the Cortex.

 Levels of Arousal and
Consciousness
• A level of wakefulness is necessary for
consciousness.
• But consciousness is not necessary for wakefulness.

Unresponsive Minimally-
Locked-In
Coma Wakefulness Conscious State
Syndrome (LIS)
Syndrome (UWS) (MCS)
Not conscious Formerly known as: Show localization to Fully conscious
Not awake Vegetative State pain Unable to move,
Can do non-reflex except in some cases:
Not Conscious movements: Blink 1 eyelid or make
-Voluntary eye movements tiny eye movements.
Awake (eyes open) -Follow simple commands Normal sleep-wake
Only Reflexes “squeeze my hand” cycles.
Locked-In Syndrome (LIS)
• LIS caused by:
• A lesion to the Pons (bridge between cerebellum and rest of the
brain).
• ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)
• Can’t move, but may retain full cognitive ability.
• LIS patients have been mis-diagnosed with Unresponsive
Wakefulness Syndrome (UWS)!

• UWS diagnosis:
• No evidence of a sustained, reproducible, purposeful, or
voluntary behavioral response to visual, auditory, tactile, or
noxious stimuli found on repeated examinations.
Locked-In Syndrome (LIS)
Adrian Owen Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbWHAIDHUQ4

Dawn Faizey Webster (Patient with LIS) TED Talk:

“Fighting back one blink at a time: living with Locked-
In Syndrome”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dpzl8EK-S0
 Locked-In Syndrome (LIS)
(originally
diagnosed
with UWS)

Owen et al., 2006

 Locked-In Syndrome (LIS)

“Yes”

“No”
Locked-In Syndrome (LIS)

Jean-Dominique Bauby
(Former Editor-in-Chief of Elle magazine)

Stroke at Age 43 à Can only blink Left Eyelid.

Access to Information
• Is most of the processing in the brain Conscious or
Non-Conscious?

• Most of the processing in the brain is non-conscious!

• Conscious access to only a limited amount of information
in the brain.

• Processing may shift between conscious and non-

conscious states, with practice.
• Examples: Driving a Car, Riding a Bicycle
Access to Information
• Access Awareness = The ability to report on the
contents of mental experience.
• What kinds of information can reach conscious
awareness?
• Knowledge about the self or other forms of knowledge
(declarative memory), thoughts
• Feelings
• Products of perceptual processing
• Contents of short-term memory

* Dehaene: Information becomes conscious if the neural

population that represents that information is in the
focus of top-down attention.
Access to Information
• What kinds of information do not reach conscious
awareness?
• Autonomic responses
• Internal neural operations of processes, like vision,
language, motor control, etc.
• The neural processes that produce the contents of
mental experience.
Subliminal Perception
• Present a stimulus below the threshold of sensation
or awareness.
• Then, probe the participant’s awareness of the
subliminally-presented stimulus.
Non-Conscious Processing
Was each picture
Will the participant be able
consciously perceived?
to complete the word stems?
Access to Information

Can you name some patient populations or patient

cases that can provide information about conscious
and non-conscious processing:
specifically, about how information reaches (or
doesn’t reach) conscious awareness?
 Access to Information
• Split-Brain Patients

Unaware of and not bothered by their impairment (for example, to verbalize info in their
Left visual field). Whole conscious experience of Left Visual Field experienced only by the
Right Hemisphere of the Brain.
Access to Information
Age-matched
H.M.’s Brain control
• Episodic Amnesia

Patient K.C.

Corkin et al. 1997

 Access to Information
• Visual Agnosia: Access to “Where/How” dorsal stream
information, not “What” ventral stream info.

G.S. suffered a stroke in his 30’s.

G.S.’s Agnosia is specific to Vision...
He can use other Sensory Modalities (touch, smell) to recognize objects.
 Access to Information
• Spatial Neglect: Same or Different Task
Access to Information
• Blindsight:
• Access to some visual information can occur without the
subjective, conscious experience of it.
• Due to Lesion in Visual Cortex.
• Mechanism not well understood (some patients have
spared tissue in visual cortex).
Consciousness
• If there is intact subcortical processing (representing “core
consciousness”), then the person will be conscious.

• Extended Consciousness comprises the product of

thousands of specialized cortical neural systems.

• From moment-to-moment, different neural systems

compete for entry into conscious awareness.
• Only some of the information represented by those
systems gets through to awareness.
Announcements
• Homework 9: Social Cognition
• Due Friday, April 29
• Homework 10: Reflection
• Due Thursday, May 5
• Homework 10 Extra Credit
• Due Friday, May 6
• Jeopardy in Discussion Sections Tomorrow (April 29)
• Tuesday, May 3: In-Class Review
• Thursday, May 5: Exam 4
• Friday, May 6: Discussion Sections
• Reflection on the semester, based on Homework 10
Announcements
• Please complete the Course Evaluations!

• Course Evaluation Link in CatCourses

• This course has multiple evaluations: Professor and TA.

(Please ensure that your responses correspond to the
correct person.)

• The TAs and I value your feedback! Thank you!

Review Questions
• Mind-Brain Problem: What is the difference
between dualism and materialism?
• What is Sentience?
• Describe the “Hard Problem” of Consciousness.
• What is Access Awareness? Which types of
information reach conscious awareness? Which
don’t?
• Which brain regions are involved in Core
Consciousness vs. Extended Consciousness?
Review Questions
• Describe different levels of Arousal/Consciousness.
• Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome
• Minimally Conscious State
• Locked-In Syndrome
• Describe a study by Adrian Owen that showed that people
with Locked-In Syndrome are conscious.
• What is subliminal perception?
• Describe a priming task that examined non-conscious
processing of visual stimuli.
• What are some different patient populations that can
provide information about how information reaches
conscious awareness?