A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology.

ABSTRACT: Altered states of consciousness, such as psychotic or pharmacologically-induced hallucinations, provide a unique opportunity to examine the mechanisms underlying conscious perception. However, the phenomenological properties of these states are difficult to isolate experimentally from other, more general physiological and cognitive effects of psychoactive substances or psychopathological conditions. Thus, simulating phenomenological aspects of altered states in the absence of these other more general effects provides an important experimental tool for consciousness science and psychiatry. Here we describe such a tool, which we call the Hallucination Machine. It comprises a novel combination of two powerful technologies: deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) and panoramic videos of nat

SUBMITTER: Suzuki K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5700081 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature