Causal manipulation of feed-forward and recurrent processing differentially affects measures of consciousness.

ABSTRACT: It has been theorized that cortical feed-forward and recurrent neural activity support unconscious and conscious cognitive processes, respectively. Here we causally tested this proposition by applying event-related transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at early and late times relative to visual stimuli, together with a pulse designed to suppress conscious detection. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, early TMS affected residual, reportedly 'unseen' capacity. However, conscious perception also appeared critically dependent upon feed-forward processing to a greater extent than the later recurrent phase. Additional exploratory analyses suggested that these early effects dissociated from top-down criterion measures, which were most affected by later TMS. These findings are inconsiste

SUBMITTER: Allen C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7475771 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature