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Chuyin Z, Koh ZH, Gallagher R, Nishimoto S, Tsuchiya N. What can we experience and report on a rapidly presented image? Intersubjective measures of specificity of freely reported contents of consciousness. F1000Res 2022; 11:69. [PMID: 36176545 PMCID: PMC9493396 DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.75364.2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/22/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Background: A majority of previous studies appear to support a view that human observers can only perceive coarse information from a natural scene image when it is presented rapidly (<100ms, masked). In these studies, participants were often forced to choose an answer from options that experimenters preselected. These options can underestimate what participants experience and can report on it. The current study aims to introduce a novel methodology to investigate how detailed information participants can report after briefly seeing a natural scene image. Methods: We used a novel free-report paradigm to examine what people can freely report following a rapidly presented natural scene image (67/133/267ms, masked). N = 600 online participants typed up to five words to report what they saw in the image together with confidence of the respective responses. We developed a novel index, Intersubjective Agreement (IA). IA quantifies how specifically the response words were used to describe the target image, with a high value meaning the word is not often reported for other images. Importantly, IA eliminates the need for experimenters to preselect response options. Results: The words with high IA values are often something detailed (e.g., a small object) in a particular image. With IA, unlike commonly believed, we demonstrated that participants reported highly specific and detailed aspects of the briefly (even at 67ms, masked) shown image. Further, IA is positively correlated with confidence, indicating metacognitive conscious access to the reported aspects of the image. Conclusion: These new findings challenge the dominant view that the content of rapid scene experience is limited to global and coarse gist. Our novel paradigm opens a door to investigate various contents of consciousness with a free-report paradigm.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhang Chuyin
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health & School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3168, Australia
| | - Zhao Hui Koh
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health & School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3168, Australia
| | - Regan Gallagher
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health & School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3168, Australia
| | - Shinji Nishimoto
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
| | - Naotsugu Tsuchiya
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health & School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3168, Australia
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Advanced Telecommunications Research Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Hikaridai, Kyoto, Japan
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Tsuchiya N, Saigo H. A relational approach to consciousness: categories of level and contents of consciousness. Neurosci Conscious 2021; 2021:niab034. [PMID: 34659799 PMCID: PMC8517618 DOI: 10.1093/nc/niab034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2021] [Revised: 08/18/2021] [Accepted: 09/24/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Characterizing consciousness in and of itself is notoriously difficult. Here, we propose an alternative approach to characterize, and eventually define, consciousness through exhaustive descriptions of consciousness' relationships to all other consciousness. This approach is founded in category theory. Indeed, category theory can prove that two objects A and B in a category can be equivalent if and only if all the relationships that A holds with others in the category are the same as those of B; this proof is called the Yoneda lemma. To introduce the Yoneda lemma, we gradually introduce key concepts of category theory to consciousness researchers. Along the way, we propose several possible definitions of categories of consciousness, both in terms of level and contents, through the usage of simple examples. We propose to use the categorical structure of consciousness as a gold standard to formalize empirical research (e.g. color qualia structure at fovea and periphery) and, especially, the empirical testing of theories of consciousness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naotsugu Tsuchiya
- School of Psychological Sciences and Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia
- Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
- Advanced Telecommunications Research Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan
| | - Hayato Saigo
- Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology, 1266 Tamura-cho, Nagahama, Shiga 526-0829, Japan
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