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Publications (197)
Classic change blindness is the phenomenon where seemingly obvious changes that coincide with visual disruptions (such as blinks or brief blanks) go unnoticed by an attentive observer. Some early work into the causes of classic change blindness suggested that any pre-change stimulus representation is overwritten by a representation of the altered p...
Disputes between rival theories of consciousness have often centered on
whether perceptual contents can be decoded from the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
Failures to decode from the PFC are taken to challenge‘cognitive’ theories of
consciousness such as the global workspace theory and higher-order monitoring
theories, and decoding successes have been ta...
A neuroscientist searches for the seat of consciousness
Précis
Ned Block
This book argues that there is a joint in nature in the sense of a fundamental explanatory difference between thinking and seeing – and more generally between cognition and perception. The questions explored in the course of the argument are whether there is ‘cognitive penetration’, e.g. whether thinking affects seeing (it does); w...
1. Adaptation, signal detection and the purposes of perception: reply to Ian Phillips and Chaz Firestone
Ian Phillips and Chaz Firestone have written a wonderful article on the rationale for adaptation as an indicator of perception, and more generally, on the purpose of perception, full of insights and challenges.
1.1 Adaptation
The issue they rai...
The study of the brain's representations of uncertainty is a central topic in neuroscience. Unlike most quantities of which the neural representation is studied, uncertainty is a property of an observer's beliefs about the world, which poses specific methodological challenges. We analyze how the literature on the neural representations of uncertain...
The evidence that the target article cites for language-of-thought (LoT) structure in perceptual object representations concerns perceptual working memory, not perception. Perception is iconic, not structured like an LoT. Perceptual working memory representations contain the remnants of iconic perceptual representations, often recoded, in a discurs...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
Why the concept of an object file is dangerously ambiguous
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including...
A deep concern with consciousness and intentionality is one of the several things that has lately moved into the centre of the philosophy of mind. The issue of consciousness is often treated as something distinct from intentionality, but – as Tim Crane notes in his incisive new Foreword – there is now something of a sea-change. This classic volume...
Experiments suggest that conscious decisions to act may be initiated by unconscious neural events that precede the decision. Some have concluded that unconscious neural events are sufficient to cause both the decision to act and the action, so consciousness has no causal efficacy in producing the action. Here, I explain why this reasoning is fallac...
The study of the brain's representations of uncertainty is a central topic in neuroscience. Unlike other cases of representation, uncertainty is a property of an observer's representation of the world, posing specific methodological challenges. We analyze how the literature on uncertainty addresses those challenges and distinguish between "descript...
Philosophers and neuroscientists address central issues in both fields, including morality, action, mental illness, consciousness, perception, and memory.
Philosophers and neuroscientists grapple with the same profound questions involving consciousness, perception, behavior, and moral judgment, but only recently have the two disciplines begun to wo...
What is free will? Can it exist in a determined universe? How can we determine who, if anyone, possesses it? Philosophers have been debating these questions for millennia. In recent decades neuroscientists have joined the fray with questions of their own. Which neural mechanisms could enable conscious control of action? What are intentional actions...
Reply to commentary by Naccache and colleagues (https://osf.io/zrqp8/) on our paper (Raccah et al., 2021) -https://www.jneurosci.org/content/41/10/2076.abstract
A fundamental question for perception research is what sensory information is available for decision making, or, stated differently, what is the output of perception. One answer that has emerged in the last two decades is that perception is probabilistic, meaning that the brain represents probability distributions over world states. However, despit...
According to conceptual role semantics (CRS), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, for example, in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well-known ‘use’ theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and, more gen...
A central debate in philosophy and neuroscience pertains to whether PFC activity plays an essential role in the neural basis of consciousness. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology studies have revealed that the contents of conscious perceptual experience can be successfully decoded from PFC activity, but these findings might be confounded by postperc...
Computational models of visual processing aim to provide a compact, explanatory account of the complex neural processes that underlie visual perception and behavior. But what, if anything, do current modeling approaches say about how conscious visual experience arises from neural processing? Here, we introduce the reader to four commonly used model...
Is consciousness based in prefrontal circuits involved in cognitive processes like thought, reasoning, and memory or, alternatively, is it based in sensory areas in the back of the neocortex? The no-report paradigm has been crucial to this debate because it aims to separate the neural basis of the cognitive processes underlying post-perceptual deci...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
New essays on the philosophy of Ned Block, with substantive and wide-ranging responses by Block.
Perhaps more than any other philosopher of mind, Ned Block synthesizes philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind; he is unique in moving back and forth across this divide, doing so with creativity and intensity. Over the course of his career,...
Scientific research on consciousness is critical to multiple scientific, clinical, and ethical issues. The growth of the field could also be beneficial to several areas including neurology and mental health research. To achieve this goal, we need to set funding priorities carefully and address problems such as job creation and potential media misre...
The success of the Bayesian perspective in explaining perceptual phenomena has motivated the view that perceptual representation is probabilistic. But if perceptual representation is probabilistic, why does normal conscious perception not reflect the full probability functions that the probabilistic point of view endorses? For example, neurons in c...
Argues that perception is only probabilistic in an "as if" or instrumentalist sense. Relevant to criticisms of arguments for overflow that are based in claims of real probabilistic perception
The success of the Bayesian approach to perception suggests probabilistic perceptual representations. But if perceptual representation is probabilistic, why doesn't normal conscious perception reflect the full probability distributions that the probabilistic point of view endorses? For example, neurons in MT/V5 that respond to the direction of moti...
In our ASSC20 symposium, “Does unconscious perception really exist?”, the four of us asked some difficult questions about the purported phenomenon of unconscious perception, disagreeing on a number of points. This disagreement reflected the objective of the symposium: not only to come together to discuss a single topic of keen interest to the ASSC...
A recent fMRI study by Webb et al. (Cortical networks involved in visual awareness independent of visual attention, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2016;113:13923–28) proposes a new method for finding the neural correlates of awareness by matching atten- tion across awareness conditions. The experimental design, however, seems at odds with known features...
A unique interdisciplinary collection of papers and commentaries by leading researchers and rising scholars, representing the latest research on consciousness, mind, and brain. This collection offers the most comprehensive collection on consciousness, brain, and mind available. It gathers 39 original papers by leaders in the field followed by comme...
A unique interdisciplinary collection of papers and commentaries by leading researchers and rising scholars, representing the latest research on consciousness, mind, and brain. This collection offers the most comprehensive collection on consciousness, brain, and mind available. It gathers 39 original papers by leaders in the field followed by comme...
A unique interdisciplinary collection of papers and commentaries by leading researchers and rising scholars, representing the latest research on consciousness, mind, and brain. This collection offers the most comprehensive collection on consciousness, brain, and mind available. It gathers 39 original papers by leaders in the field followed by comme...
One approach to the issue of a joint in nature between perception and cognition is to investigate whether the concepts of perception and cognition can be tweaked to avoid direct, content-specific effects of cognition on perception.
How does mind fit into nature? Philosophy has long been concerned with this question. No contemporary philosopher has done more to clarify it than Jaegwon Kim, a distinguished analytic philosopher specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. With new contributions from an outstanding line-up of eminent scholars, this volume focuses on issues...
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman once remarked that engaging the public about economic theories is hard, partly because everybody feels they are entitled to opine about the economy even if they have no formal training in economics (see: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/virus.html). Perhaps because we are all conscious, the same sometimes happens in the fi...
Michael Tye's response to my “Grain” (Block ) and “Windows” (Block ) raises general metaphilosophical issues about the value of intuitions and judgments about one's perceptions and the relations of those intuitions and judgments to empirical research, as well as specific philosophical issues about the relation between seeing, attention and de re th...
Can we consciously see more items at once than can be held in visual working memory? This question has eluded resolution because the ultimate evidence is subjects' reports in which phenomenal consciousness is filtered through working memory. However, a new technique makes use of the fact that unattended 'ensemble properties' can be detected 'for fr...
The Anna Karenina theory says: all conscious states are alike; each unconscious state is unconscious in its own way. This paper argues that many components have to function properly to produce consciousness, but failure in any one of many different ones can yield an unconscious state in different ways. In that sense the Anna Karenina theory is true...
Clark advertises the predictive coding (PC) framework as applying to a wide range of phenomena, including attention. We argue that for many attentional phenomena, the predictive coding picture either makes false predictions, or else it offers no distinctive explanation of those phenomena, thereby reducing its explanatory power.
Cohen and colleagues masterfully summarize the psychophysical and neurophysiological evidence pertaining to the distinction between visual attention and visual consciousness, concluding that attention is necessary but not sufficient for consciousness [1]. We disagree with their view for the following reasons.
Often when there is no attention to an object, there is no conscious perception of it either, leading some to conclude that conscious perception is an attentional phenomenon. There is a well-known perceptual phenomenon—visuo-spatial crowding, in which objects are too closely packed for attention to single out one of them. This article argues that t...
One of the most important issues concerning the foundations of conscious perception centers on the question of whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse. The overflow argument uses a form of 'iconic memory' to argue that perceptual consciousness is richer (i.e., has a higher capacity) than cognitive access: when observing a complex scene w...
Much of recent philosophy of perception is oriented towards accounting for the phenomenal character of perception—what it is like to perceive—in a non-mentalistic way—that is, without appealing to mental objects or mental qualities. In opposition to such views, I claim that the phenomenal character of perception of a red round object cannot be expl...
This article concerns the interplay between two issues that involve both philosophy and neuroscience: whether the content of phenomenal consciousness is ‘rich’ or ‘sparse’, whether phenomenal consciousness goes beyond cognitive access, and how it would be possible for there to be evidence one way or the other.
The fourth edition of the work that defines the field of cognitive neuroscience, offering completely new material. Each edition of this classic reference has proved to be a benchmark in the developing field of cognitive neuroscience. The fourth edition of The Cognitive Neurosciences continues to chart new directions in the study of the biologic und...
How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward:...
This article concerns the interplay between two issues that involve both philosophy and neuroscience: whether the content of phenomenal consciousness is 'rich' or 'sparse', whether phenomenal consciousness goes beyond cognitive access, and how it would be possible for there to be evidence one way or the other.
Wittgenstein, 1968) endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. This paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that Wittgenstein endorsed (the "innocuous" inverted spectrum hypothesis) is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a Wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he re...
In this response to 32 commentators, I start by clarifying the overflow argument. I explain why the distinction between generic and specific phenomenology is important and why we are justified in acknowledging specific phenomenology in the overflow experiments. Other issues discussed are the relations among report, cognitive access, and attention;...
