Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 32, Issue 43, Pages 14909-14914Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2051-12.2012
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Funding
- Max Planck Society
- LOEWE Neuronale Koordination Forschungsschwerpunkt Frankfurt
- Emmy-Noether
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Which neural processes underlie our conscious experience? One theoretical view argues that the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) reside in local activity in sensory cortices. Accordingly, local category-specific gamma band responses in visual cortex correlate with conscious perception. However, as most studies manipulated conscious perception by altering the amount of sensory evidence, it is possible that they reflect prerequisites or consequences of consciousness rather than the actual NCC. Here we directly address this issue by developing a new experimental paradigm in which conscious perception is modulated either by sensory evidence or by previous exposure of the images while recording intracranial EEG from the higher-order visual cortex of human epilepsy patients. A clear prediction is that neural processes directly reflecting conscious perception should be present regardless of how it comes about. In contrast, we observed that although subjective reports were modulated both by sensory evidence and by previous exposure, gamma band responses solely reflected sensory evidence. This result contradicts the proposal that local gamma band responses in the higher-order visual cortex reflect conscious perception.
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