Hirschhorn Rony, Kahane Ofer, Gur-Arie Inbal, Faivre Nathan, Mudrik Liad
Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2021 Jan 14;14:617187. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.617187. eCollection 2020.
In the ongoing research of the functions of consciousness, special emphasis has been put on integration of information: the ability to combine different signals into a coherent, unified one. Several theories of consciousness hold that this ability depends on - or at least goes hand in hand with - conscious processing. Yet some empirical findings have suggested otherwise, claiming that integration of information could take place even without awareness. Trying to reconcile this apparent contradiction, the "windows of integration" (WOI) hypothesis claims that conscious access enables signal processing over large integration windows. The hypothesis applies to integration windows defined either temporally, spatially, or semantically. In this review, we explain the hypothesis and re-examine it in light of new studies published since it was suggested. In line with the hypothesis, these studies provide compelling evidence for unconscious integration, but also demonstrate its limits with respect to time, space, and semantic distance. The review further highlights open questions that still need to be pursued to demonstrate the applicability of the WOI hypothesis as a guiding principle for understanding the depth and scope of unconscious processes.
在对意识功能的持续研究中，特别强调了信息整合：即将不同信号组合成一个连贯、统一信号的能力。几种意识理论认为，这种能力依赖于——或者至少与——有意识的加工过程密切相关。然而，一些实证研究结果却提出了不同的观点，声称即使没有意识，信息整合也可能发生。为了调和这一明显的矛盾，“整合窗口”（WOI）假说认为，有意识的通达能够在较大的整合窗口上进行信号处理。该假说适用于在时间、空间或语义上定义的整合窗口。在这篇综述中，我们解释了这一假说，并根据自其提出以来发表的新研究对其进行重新审视。与该假说一致，这些研究为无意识整合提供了令人信服的证据，但也证明了其在时间、空间和语义距离方面的局限性。这篇综述进一步强调了一些仍需探讨的开放性问题，以证明WOI假说作为理解无意识过程的深度和范围的指导原则的适用性。
