This project investigates the neuronal mechanisms underlying conscious visual perception. By combining adaptive psychophysics, backward masking, and intracranial single-neuron recordings, the project isolates neuronal activity associated with conscious awareness while controlling for physical stimulus intensity.
This project investigates the neuronal basis of conscious visual perception using intracranial single-neuron recordings in patients undergoing clinical monitoring for epilepsy. The central objective is to identify neuronal activity specifically associated with conscious awareness while dissociating it from differences in sensory input.
Visual object recognition is manipulated using backward masking and adaptive psychophysical procedures that continuously estimate each participant's perceptual threshold. By presenting stimuli at, above, and below this threshold, the paradigm generates physically matched trials in which identical stimuli are consciously perceived in some trials but remain outside awareness in others. This approach enables direct comparisons between conscious and unconscious perception while controlling for stimulus intensity.
The recorded neuronal activity is used to investigate how individual neurons in the human medial temporal lobe encode visual objects across different states of awareness. The project examines whether neuronal responses exhibit all-or-none or graded response patterns and whether object-specific information is represented even in the absence of subjective awareness. The findings could contribute to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying visual consciousness and the biological foundations of conscious perception.
