Detecting conscious awareness from involuntary autonomic responses

Can conscious awareness be ascertained from physiological responses alone? We evaluate a novel learning-based procedure permitting detection of conscious awareness without reliance on language comprehension or behavioural responses. The method exploits a situation whereby only consciously detected v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Consciousness and cognition 2011-09, Vol.20 (3), p.936-942
Main Authors: Scott, Ryan B., Minati, Ludovico, Dienes, Zoltan, Critchley, Hugo D., Seth, Anil K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Attention
Autonomic Nervous System - physiology
Awareness - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Conscious awareness
Consciousness
Consciousness - physiology
Disorders of consciousness
Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes
Female
Galvanic Skin Response
Humans
Locked-in syndrome
Male
Medical sciences
Minimally conscious state
Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes)
Neurology
Neuropsychology
Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology
Persistent vegetative state
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Unconscious knowledge
Young Adult
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Summary:Can conscious awareness be ascertained from physiological responses alone? We evaluate a novel learning-based procedure permitting detection of conscious awareness without reliance on language comprehension or behavioural responses. The method exploits a situation whereby only consciously detected violations of an expectation alter skin conductance responses (SCRs). Thirty participants listened to sequences of piano notes that, without their being told, predicted a pleasant fanfare or an aversive noise according to an abstract rule. Stimuli were presented without distraction (attended), or while distracted by a visual task to remove awareness of the rule (unattended). A test phase included occasional violations of the rule. Only participants attending the sounds reported awareness of violations and only they showed significantly greater SCR for noise occurring in violation, vs. accordance, with the rule. Our results establish theoretically significant dissociations between conscious and unconscious processing and furnish new opportunities for clinical assessment of residual consciousness in patient populations.
ISSN:1053-8100
1090-2376
DOI:10.1016/j.concog.2010.11.009