Task 7 Flashcards
Blindsight is a dissociation between ______ and _____.
Phenomenal Consciousness ; Behavior
What can cause Korsakoff’s Syndrome?
Alcohol Poisoning and Malnutrition
What are the effects of Korsakoff’s?
Anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Distant episodic memories and classical conditioning remain intact.
Unilateral Neglect can be partially explained as what?
A deficit of attention.
Which house would neglect patients chose in the burning house task?
The not burning one. The emotional and salient cue of the fire still affects decision making but patients would confabulate their answer.
What happens in Anton’s Syndrome?
Patients are physically blind but insist they aren’t and confabulate when bumping into things.
What still works in Anton’s Syndrome Patients?
Eyes and Imagination
What does blindsight logically demonstrate?
That Consciousness and Perception are distinct
What does it mean when people say that blindsight patients have increased response criteria?
They are hesitant to admit they might see something
Do blindsight patients have visual consciousness?
Yes - phenomenal
According to Marzi, there is no kind of consciousness in blindsight patients. Why?
Because there is no input into the neurological consciousness pathways
What is a dissociation criterion?
Subjects are applying or acquiring information about stimuli without being aware of this or the intention to do so
How does one subjectively determine whether someone is experiencing dissociation?
when subjects claim to not be able to discriminate perceptual information
How does one objectively determine whether someone is experiencing dissociation?
Determining experimentally whether or not perceptual information is discriminated above chance level
How could blindsight be related to the ventral and dorsal streams of visual perception?
Milner & Goodale:
Blindsight could be the product of strong deficits in the ventral (recognition) pathway and slight deficits in the dorsal (action) pathway. The dorsal pathway according to this view has proprioceptive awareness.
What are two research finding that questions whether the ventral visual stream is truly deficient?
- After being shown a word in the blind eye field, the participants chose words from a group in the intact visual field, that were the same or related.
- Illusory shapes like Kanizsa-triangles were only perceived when they were complete, even though one half was always in the blind field
The study with Kanizsa squares in blindsight patients is not without criticism. What are some confounders?
- Marcel (1998) argues that kanizsa squares were only perceived when completed in the blind field, because recognition in the blind field can form a hypothesis about the shape, which is then confirmed by the seeing field.
- Memories of the visual illusions, could be why the illusions (Kanizsa squares) still work
Why does Marcel argue for indirect research methods in the study of blindsight instead of forced-choice paradigms?
Forced-choice is subject to response biases
What are the three main types of agnosia?
- Apperceptive Agnosia
- Associative Agnosia
- Dorsal Stimultagnosia
What happens in apperceptive agnosia?
- Only features like brightness, color and movement are recognized.
- Cues aren’t grouped together into distinct objects
What happens in associative agnosia?
Objects are perceived but not recognized or identified.
What happens in dorsal stimultagnosia?
- Only one object at a time can be recognized.
- Seems to be connected to spatial attention
Is blindsight a deficit of attention?
No
How can blindsight be summarized in terms of perception and awareness?
Blindsight is a defect of both form and motion perception, correlated with a partial loss of phenomenal awareness.
