Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310007, China.
Sci China Life Sci. 2021 Jun;64(6):847-860. doi: 10.1007/s11427-020-1831-8. Epub 2021 Jan 27.
The moment we open our eyes, we experience a rich and detailed visual world, but the amount of information available to report is rather limited. This dissociation relates to a major debate regarding the nature of visual consciousness. The overflow argument suggests that our conscious experience is quite rich and far beyond what can be reported, standing in sharp contrast to the no-overflow argument that visual consciousness is severely impoverished and limited to what can be reported. In this paper, we systematically reviewed existing evidence in favor of the overflow argument, including studies of several variations of the iconic memory paradigm and the divided attention paradigm, as well as studies of neural correlates of consciousness. Simultaneously, we expounded some critical objections and alternative interpretations to such evidence, as well as some opposing evidence. Finally, we introduced a series of our recent studies based on a striking phenomenon of attribute amnesia, which we believe could provide new insight into the overflow view of visual consciousness.
当我们睁开眼睛的那一刻，我们体验到了一个丰富多彩、细节丰富的视觉世界，但可供报告的信息量却相当有限。这种分离与关于视觉意识本质的一个主要争论有关。溢出论证表明，我们的意识体验非常丰富，远远超出了可以报告的范围，与没有溢出论证形成鲜明对比，后者认为视觉意识非常贫瘠，仅限于可以报告的范围。在本文中，我们系统地回顾了支持溢出论证的现有证据，包括对几种标志性记忆范式和分散注意范式的研究，以及对意识神经相关物的研究。同时，我们阐述了对这些证据的一些关键反对意见和替代解释，以及一些相反的证据。最后，我们介绍了一系列基于属性遗忘这一惊人现象的最新研究，我们认为这些研究可以为视觉意识的溢出观点提供新的见解。
