Task 1 - Consciousness

Question 1

What is 1st person data?

Answer 1

• ONLY inner experience (e.g. experience of colour)

- any experience you have

Question 2

Can you express 1st person data?

Answer 2

• cannot be fully expressed as 3rd person data (formalism–> always dependent on language)
• hard to be expressed verbally (words are too limited)

Question 3

Can you express 1st person data emotions?

Answer 3

-emotions are particularly hard to express, especially if the person had not experienced them before

Question 4

What is 3rd person data?

Answer 4

• data about brain processes, behaviour, environmental interaction& the like (Chalmers)
• fMRI, EEG; verbal report

Question 5

What is the science of consciousness about?

Answer 5

…is all about relating third-person data - about brain processes, behavior, environmental interaction, and the like - to first-person data about conscious –> experience

Question 6

What is consciousness according to Naccache?

Answer 6

ability to report one’s own mental state is the fundamental property of consciousness

Question 7

What are the psychological attributes of conscious processing according to Naccache?

Answer 7

(i) active maintenance of mental representations; (ii) strategical processing; and (iii) spontaneous intentional behavior & ability to report ones own mental state

Question 8

What is the neural correlate of consciousness (=NCC)?

Answer 8

smth physical but not necessarily a brain part

Question 9

Can we measure C directly?

Answer 9

No, that’s why we engage in philosophical reasoning

Question 10

What is the rational reconstruction of the search for the NCC?

Answer 10

1. C =Global availability (Bridging principle)
2. Global availability = neural process N (empirical work)
   so
3. C= neural process N (conclusion)

Question 11

What are the conclusions of the rational reconstruction?

Answer 11

1. NCC -> Mechanism of global availability
2. It will explain global availability in the brain; it will isolate the processes that underlie C itself
3. Many NCC because many mechanisms of global availability
4. C module -> doesn’t need to be physical but if it will be a functional area responsible for integrating information in the brain
5. where NCC of visual C will be, depends on area most directly implicated in global availability
6. Primary criterion for C –> its FUNCTIONAL property

Question 12

What is a pre-experimental bridging principle?

Answer 12

• Principle of which you judge if a person is conscious e.g. global availability
• before starting experiment and cannot be tested

Question 13

What is the principle of global availability?

Answer 13

when info is available to cognitive system & you are aware of the info, then its globally available

Question 14

What is the principle of verbal report?

Answer 14

• extension of global availability

- when information is directly available for verbal report, it is conscious

Question 15

If you find NCC, will it explain C?

Answer 15

No, there’s never an independent test because the principle of global availability in it

Question 16

What is a vegetative state?

Answer 16

• neurological categorization of patients who emerge from coma, appear to be awake, but show no signs of awareness of self or environment
• no purposeful behaviour in response to external stimuli

Question 17

Explain Owen et al’s study.

• What did they measure?
• What were the results?

Answer 17

• Claim she is conscious
• measured neural activity to sentences that were spoken (imagine playing tennis and imagine walking in your house) vs noise -> to see if she could distinguish -> brain activity like healthy people
• processing in brain same as healthy people –> she might actually be conscious

Question 18

What is Owen’s bridging principle?

Answer 18

Responding to task/ command with brain activity

Question 19

What does Naccache say about Owen’s study?

Answer 19

-You shouldn’t generalize -> she only had small lesions
-If conscious, and not lesioned in motor pathway  why can’t she move?
-No long- term integration!
-She meets one of those psychological attributes of conscious processing, but that does NOT mean she is conscious
==> She is NOT conscious

Question 20

What does Burton say about Owen’s study?

Answer 20

 Findings are dangerous -> ethical dilemmas
 Does being awake means being aware?
 Owen just showed that specific processes are still preserved but that doesn’t mean they’re conscious
 Chinese study: brain areas related to language processing can sill be activated
 She was not conscious, but she still had those unconscious processing; her responses can also be unconscious
 Compared to Owen’s study but that’s not legitimate; responding to your name is not the same thing as what Owen et al did

Question 21

What was Monti’s study’s results?

Answer 21

• 5 were able to willfully modulate their brain activity
• In 3 of these patients, additional bedside testing revealed some sign of awareness, but in the other 2 patients, no voluntary behavior could be detected by means of clinical assessment
• 1 patient was able to use our technique to answer yes or no to questions during functional MRI

Question 22

What was the method of Monti?

Answer 22

• fMRI; 54 patients
• imagery task -> motor imagery task: hitting ball in tennis and spatial imagery task( walking in city or in own house); before imagery task: yes or no questions (spatial or imagery) -> could decide which one is yes and which one is no
• 5 were able to do motor task
• among 5, 4 could show spatial imagery task; of those 1 one could do yes/no task

Question 23

What is Monti’s conclusion?

• What is said about Owen’s study?
• What is said about the rest of the participants?
• What is believed about the patients that could do the task?

Answer 23

• there is a difference between vegetative and minimally conscious state (unconscious, but reproducible signs of awareness)
• we should not trust Owen
• doesn’t mean the rest of the participants is unconscious, maybe deficits in language might be too big
• maybe they have residual cognitive functions

Question 24

What is Monti’s bridging principle?

Answer 24

Use of motor or spatial imagery to answer yes or no (willful modulation of brain activity)

• answering questions
• double purposeful

Question 25

What is Owen et al’s research question?

Answer 25

• islands of preserved brain function may exist in a small percentage of patients who have been diagnosed as vegetative -> this technique also may provide a means for detecting conscious awareness in patients who are assumed to be vegetative yet retain cognitive abilities that have evaded detection using standard clinical methods