TY  - JOUR
A1  - Aru, Jaan
A1  - Bachmann, Talis
A1  - Singer, Wolf
A1  - Melloni, Lucia
T1  - Distilling the neural correlates of consciousness
T2  - Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
N2  - Solving the problem of consciousness remains one of the biggest challenges in modern science. One key step towards understanding consciousness is to empirically narrow down neural processes associated with the subjective experience of a particular content. To unravel these neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) a common scientific strategy is to compare perceptual conditions in which consciousness of a particular content is present with those in which it is absent, and to determine differences in measures of brain activity (the so called "contrastive analysis"). However, this comparison appears not to reveal exclusively the NCC, as the NCC proper can be confounded with prerequisites for and consequences of conscious processing of the particular content. This implies that previous results cannot be unequivocally interpreted as reflecting the neural correlates of conscious experience. Here we review evidence supporting this conjecture and suggest experimental strategies to untangle the NCC from the prerequisites and consequences of conscious experience in order to further develop the otherwise valid and valuable contrastive methodology.
KW  - Neural correlates of consciousness
KW  - Conscious perception
KW  - Contrastive analysis
Y1  - 2011
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/76651
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-766518
SN  - 0149-7634
VL  - 36.2012
IS  - 2
SP  - 737
EP  - 746
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -