Lack of awareness despite complex visual processing: Evidence from event-related potentials in a case of selective metamorphopsia

Visual awareness is thought to result from integration of low- and high-level processing; instances of integration failure provide a crucial window into the cognitive and neural bases of awareness. We present neurophysiological evidence of complex cognitive processing in the absence of awareness, ra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2020-07, Vol.117 (27), p.16055-16064
Main Authors: Schubert, Teresa M., Rothlein, David, Brothers, Trevor, Coderre, Emily L., Ledoux, Kerry, Gordon, Barry, McCloskey, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Awareness - physiology
Biological Sciences
Brain - physiology
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive ability
Digits
Electroencephalography
Event-related potentials
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
Face
Face recognition
Female
Humans
Information processing
Integration
Male
Middle Aged
Neurodegenerative Diseases
Photic Stimulation
Social Sciences
Target detection
Vision Disorders - metabolism
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual perception
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual stimuli
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Summary:Visual awareness is thought to result from integration of low- and high-level processing; instances of integration failure provide a crucial window into the cognitive and neural bases of awareness. We present neurophysiological evidence of complex cognitive processing in the absence of awareness, raising questions about the conditions necessary for visual awareness. We describe an individual with a neurodegenerative disease who exhibits impaired visual awareness for the digits 2 to 9, and stimuli presented in close proximity to these digits, due to perceptual distortion. We identified robust event-related potential responses indicating 1) face detection with the N170 component and 2) task-dependent target-word detection with the P3b component, despite no awareness of the presence of faces or target words. These data force us to reconsider the relationship between neural processing and visual awareness; even stimuli processed by a workspace-like cognitive system can remain inaccessible to awareness. We discuss how this finding challenges and constrains theories of visual awareness.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2000424117