Brain, Mind, and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Psychophysiology. 2019 Mar;56(3):e13295. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13295. Epub 2018 Oct 25.
Our environment is constantly overloaded with information, although we cannot consciously process all the stimulation reaching our senses. Current theoretical models are focused on the cognitive and neural processes underlying conscious perception. However, cognitive processes do not occur in an isolated brain but in a complex interaction between the environment, the brain, and the organism. The brain-body interaction has largely been neglected in the study of conscious perception. The aim of the present study was to explore if heart rate and skin conductance (SC) are modulated by the interaction between phasic alertness and conscious perception. We presented near-threshold visual stimuli that could be preceded by an alerting tone on 50% of the trials. Behaviorally, phasic alerting improved perceptual sensitivity for detecting a near-threshold stimulus (along with changes in response criterion). Following the alerting tone, a cardiac deceleration-acceleration pattern was observed, which was more pronounced when the near-threshold stimulus was consciously perceived in comparison with unconsciously perceived stimuli. SC results further showed some degree of subliminal processing of unseen stimuli. These results reveal that cardiac activity could be a marker of attention and consciousness interactions, emphasizing the need for taking into account brain-body interactions for current theoretical models of consciousness.
我们的环境不断充斥着信息，尽管我们无法有意识地处理所有到达感官的刺激。目前的理论模型专注于意识感知背后的认知和神经过程。然而，认知过程不是在孤立的大脑中发生，而是在环境、大脑和生物体之间的复杂相互作用中发生。在意识感知的研究中，大脑-身体的相互作用在很大程度上被忽视了。本研究的目的是探索心率和皮肤电导（SC）是否受到相位警觉与意识感知之间相互作用的调节。我们呈现了接近阈限的视觉刺激，这些刺激在 50%的试验中可以由警报声预先提示。行为上，相位警觉提高了检测接近阈限刺激的敏感性（同时改变了响应标准）。在警报声之后，观察到了一个心脏减速-加速模式，与无意识感知的刺激相比，当接近阈限刺激被有意识感知时，这个模式更加明显。SC 结果进一步显示，未被看到的刺激存在一定程度的潜意识处理。这些结果表明，心脏活动可能是注意力和意识相互作用的标志，强调需要考虑大脑-身体的相互作用，以完善当前的意识理论模型。
