| A detection theoretic explanation of blindsight suggests a link between conscious perception and metacognition. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 22492756 Owner: NLM Status: In-Data-Review |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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Blindsight refers to the rare ability of V1-damaged patients to perform visual tasks such as forced-choice discrimination, even though these patients claim not to consciously see the relevant stimuli. This striking phenomenon can be described in the formal terms of signal detection theory. (i) Blindsight patients use an unusually conservative criterion to detect targets. (ii) In discrimination tasks, their confidence ratings are low and (iii) such confidence ratings poorly predict task accuracy on a trial-by-trial basis. (iv) Their detection capacity (d') is lower than expected based on their performance in forced-choice tasks. We propose a unifying explanation that accounts for these features: that blindsight is due to a failure to represent and update the statistical information regarding the internal visual neural response, i.e. a failure in metacognition. We provide computational simulation data to demonstrate that this model can qualitatively account for the detection theoretic features of blindsight. Because such metacognitive mechanisms are likely to depend on the prefrontal cortex, this suggests that although blindsight is typically due to damage to the primary visual cortex, distal influence to the prefrontal cortex by such damage may be critical. Recent brain imaging evidence supports this view. |
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Authors:
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Yoshiaki Ko; Hakwan Lau |
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Publication Detail:
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Type: Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences Volume: 367 ISSN: 1471-2970 ISO Abbreviation: Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci. Publication Date: 2012 May |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2012-04-11 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 7503623 Medline TA: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Country: England |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 1401-11 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
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Department of Psychology, Columbia University, , New York, NY 10027, USA. |
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From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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