Overt visual attention as a causal factor of perceptual awareness.

ABSTRACT: Our everyday conscious experience of the visual world is fundamentally shaped by the interaction of overt visual attention and object awareness. Although the principal impact of both components is undisputed, it is still unclear how they interact. Here we recorded eye-movements preceding and following conscious object recognition, collected during the free inspection of ambiguous and corresponding unambiguous stimuli. Using this paradigm, we demonstrate that fixations recorded prior to object awareness predict the later recognized object identity, and that subjects accumulate more evidence that is consistent with their later percept than for the alternative. The timing of reached awareness was verified by a reaction-time based correction method and also based on changes in pupil dilation.

SUBMITTER: Kietzmann TC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3143177 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature