Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T02:39:49.680Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reportability and illusions of phenomenality in the light of the global neuronal workspace model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2008

Lionel Naccache  and
Stanislas Dehaene
Lionel Naccache
Affiliation:
Fédération de Neurophysiologie Clinique, Fédération de Neurologie, Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France INSERM Cognitive Neuro-Imaging Unit, CEA/SAC/DSV/DRM Neurospin Center, Gif/Yvette Cedex, France. lionel.naccache@normalesup.orgdehaene@cea.fr
Stanislas Dehaene
Affiliation:
INSERM Cognitive Neuro-Imaging Unit, CEA/SAC/DSV/DRM Neurospin Center, Gif/Yvette Cedex, France. lionel.naccache@normalesup.orgdehaene@cea.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Can we ever experimentally disentangle phenomenal consciousness from the cognitive accessibility inherent to conscious reports? In this commentary, we suggest that (1) Block's notion of phenomenal consciousness remains intractably entangled with the need to obtain subjective reports about it; and (2) many experimental paradigms suggest that the intuitive notion of a rich but non-reportable phenomenal world is, to a large extent illusory – in a sense that requires clarification.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 5-6 , December 2007 , pp. 518 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Block, N. (1995b) On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18(2):227–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, N. (2001) Paradox and cross purposes in recent work on consciousness. Cognition 79(1–2):197–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Block, N. (2005) Two neural correlates of consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9(2):46–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dehaene, S., Changeux, J.-P., Naccache, L., Sackur, J. & Sergant, C. (2006) Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: A testable taxonomoy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(5):204–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehaene, S., Jobert, A., Naccache, L., Ciuciu, P., Poline, J. B., Le, Bihan, D. & Cohen, L. (2004) Letter binding and invariant recognition of masked words: Behavioral and neuroimaging evidence. Psychological Science 15(5):307–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dehaene, S. & Naccache, L. (2001) Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: Basic evidence and a workspace framework. Cognition 79(1–2):1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazzaniga, M. S., LeDoux, J. E. & Wilson, D. H. (1977) Language, praxis, and the right hemisphere: Clues to some mechanisms of consciousness. Neurology 27(12):1144–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haynes, J. D., Driver, J. & Rees, G. (2005) Visibility reflects dynamic changes of effective connectivity between V1 and fusiform cortex. Neuron 46(5):811–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haynes, J. D. & Rees, G. (2006) Decoding mental states from brain activity in humans. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7(7):523–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kastner, S., De Weerd, P., Desimone, R., & Ungerleider, L. G. (1998) Mechanisms of directed attention in the human extrastriate cortex as revealed by functional MRI. Science 282(5386):108–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landman, R., Spekreijse, H. & Lamme, V. A. F. (2003) Large capacity storage of integrated objects before change blindness. Vision Research 43(2):149–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laureys, S., Pellas, F., Van Eeckhout, P, Ghorbel, S., Schnakers, C., Perrin, F., Berré, J., Faymonville, M. E., Pantke, K. H., Damas, F., Lamy, M., Moonen, G. & Goldman, S. (2005) The locked-in syndrome: What is it like to be conscious but paralyzed and voiceless? Progress in Brain Research 150:495–511.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Naccache, L. (2006a) Le nouvel inconscient. Freud, Christophe Colomb des neurosciences. Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Mullen, K. T. (2006b) Psychology. Is she conscious? Science 313(5792):1395–96.Google Scholar
Owen, A. M., Coleman, M. R., Boly, M., Davis, M. H., Laureys, S. & Pickard, J. D. (2006) Detecting awareness in the vegetative state. Science 313(5792):1402.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rayner, K. & Bertera, J. H. (1979) Reading without a fovea. Science 206(4417):468–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sergent, C., Baillet, S. & Dehaene, S. (2005) Timing of the brain events underlying access to consciousness during the attentional blink. Nature Neuroscience 8(10):1391–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sperling, G. (1960) The information available in brief visual presentations. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied 74(11, Whole No. 498):1–29. [Whole issue.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, M. A., Dang, S. & Kanwisher, N. G. (2007) Only some spatial patterns of fMRI response are read out in task performance. Nature Neuroscience 10(6):685–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed