CEREBRAL PROCESSES IN PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS

我们还在继续调查 生理大脑过程和意识或主观经验。 具体目标是将这一点扩大到认识问题， 意识，通过确定刺激是否在特定的投射 躯体感觉系统的通路（例如，丘脑中的VPL核）可以是 即使当它们不足以引起任何 有意识的感官知觉 我们要检查的时间因素 刺激持续时间（即，重复脉冲的序列持续时间） 区分足以提高认识的投入和能够提高认识的投入 在无意识的情况下被检测到，具有刺激强度（峰值电流） 远高于引起皮层神经元反应（诱发的）所需的最小值 每一个脉冲的能量。 这项研究将是对我们的一般假设的部分检验， 适当幅度或幅度的皮层激活可有助于 无意识的心理或精神功能，但激活 必须持续一段相当长的时间（取决于 强度），以引起有意识的经验。 增加 了解意识和无意识的大脑生理学 功能是精神病学和心理学理论的基础， 区

This is continuing investigation into the relationship between physiological cerebral processes and conscious or subjective experience. The specific aims are to extend this to the issue of perception without awareness, by establishing whether stimuli in the specific projection pathway of the somatosensory system (e.g., VPL nucleus in thalamus) can be detected by the human subject even when they are inadequate to elicit any conscious sensory awareness. We want to examine the time factor of stimulus duration (i.e., train duration of the repetitive pulses) in distinguishing inputs that are adequate for awareness from those that can be detected without awareness, with stimulus intensities (peak currents) well above the minimum needed to elicit cortical neuronal responses (evoked potentials) with each pulse. The study will be a partial test of our general hypothesis that brief cortical activations of suitable amplitudes or magnitudes may subserve unconscious psychological or mental functions, but that the activations must endure for some substantial time (up to about 500 msec, depending on intensity) in order also to elicit a conscious experience. An increased understanding of the cerebral physiology of conscious and unconscious functions is fundamental to psychiatric and psychological theories in this area.