Watanabe Ryoichi, Moriguchi Yusuke
Graduation School of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan.
Graduation School of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Conscious Cogn. 2023 Nov;116:103605. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103605. Epub 2023 Nov 15.
Visual consciousness studies in humans have primarily focused on adults. However, whether young children's visual consciousness is similar to or different from that of adults remains unknown. This study examined young children's and adults' subjective awareness and objective discrimination for thresholds and emergent processes of visual consciousness in two experiments. In Experiment 1, 20 5-6-year-olds and 20 adults attempted a figure discrimination task using a square or a diamond as the target stimulus and responded, using a two-point scale, to a question on subjective awareness of the target stimulus with stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) from 20 to 260 ms. In Experiment 2, 31 5-6-year-olds and 16 adults attempted the task and responded, using a four-point scale, to a question on subjective awareness with SOA from 50 to 550 ms. We measured the discrimination accuracy and the awareness scale with SOA and fit them to the sigmoid function. The results showed that the objective accuracy threshold of young children was larger than that of adults. Moreover, young children's subjective awareness threshold was larger than that of adults in the four-point but not in the two-point scale responses. Finally, there were no age differences in the emergent process of consciousness. This study suggests that the emergent process of consciousness in young children is similar to that in adults, however, the threshold in young children is larger than that in adults.
人类视觉意识研究主要集中在成年人身上。然而，幼儿的视觉意识与成年人的视觉意识是相似还是不同，仍然未知。本研究通过两个实验，考察了幼儿和成年人对视觉意识阈值及涌现过程的主观意识和客观辨别能力。在实验1中，20名5至6岁儿童和20名成年人尝试进行一项图形辨别任务，以正方形或菱形作为目标刺激，并使用两点量表，对关于目标刺激主观意识的问题进行回答，刺激起始异步时间（SOA）从20毫秒到260毫秒。在实验2中，31名5至6岁儿童和16名成年人尝试该任务，并使用四点量表，对关于主观意识的问题进行回答，SOA从50毫秒到550毫秒。我们测量了不同SOA下的辨别准确率和意识量表，并将其拟合到S形函数。结果表明，幼儿的客观准确率阈值大于成年人。此外，在四点量表反应中，幼儿的主观意识阈值大于成年人，但在两点量表反应中并非如此。最后，在意识的涌现过程中没有年龄差异。本研究表明，幼儿意识的涌现过程与成年人相似，然而，幼儿的阈值大于成年人。
