Event-related brain potential correlates of visual awareness

Electrophysiological recordings during visual tasks can shed light on the temporal dynamics of the subjective experience of seeing, visual awareness. This paper reviews studies on electrophysiological correlates of visual awareness operationalized as the difference between event-related potentials (...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2010-05, Vol.34 (6), p.922-934
Main Authors: Koivisto, Mika, Revonsuo, Antti
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Attention - physiology
Awareness
Awareness - physiology
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - physiology
Consciousness
EEG
ERP
Evoked Potentials
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Natural sciences
Naturvetenskap
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Visual perception
Visual Perception - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Electrophysiological recordings during visual tasks can shed light on the temporal dynamics of the subjective experience of seeing, visual awareness. This paper reviews studies on electrophysiological correlates of visual awareness operationalized as the difference between event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to stimuli that enter awareness and stimuli that do not. There are three candidates for such a correlate: enhancement of P1 around 100 ms, enhancement of early posterior negativity around 200 ms (visual awareness negativity, VAN), and enhancement of late positivity (LP) in the P3 time window around 400 ms. Review of studies using different manipulations of awareness suggests that VAN is the correlate of visual awareness that most consistently emerges across different manipulations of visual awareness. VAN emerges also relatively independent of manipulations of nonspatial attention, but seems to be dependent on spatial attention. The results suggest that visual awareness emerges about 200 ms after the onset of visual stimulation as a consequence of the activation of posterior occipito-temporal and parietal networks.
ISSN:0149-7634
1873-7528
1873-7528
DOI:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.12.002