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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp017d278w72h
Title: Brain Mechanisms of Subjective Visual Awareness and Visual Attention
Authors: Webb, Taylor
Advisors: Graziano, Michael
Contributors: Psychology Department
Keywords: attention
consciousness
independent component analysis
temporoparietal junction
Subjects: Cognitive psychology
Neurosciences
Issue Date: 2018
Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University
Abstract: Our psychological processes are sometimes accompanied by a sense of awareness, a property which is still poorly understood. The experiments presented in this dissertation contribute to our emerging understanding of the behavioral and brain basis of visual awareness, with a special focus on its relationship with visual attention. First, in a series of a behavioral experiments, the functional relationship between attention and awareness is considered. The results show that attention is less well controlled in the absence of awareness, contradicting the notion that awareness is an ‘epiphenomenon’ - a property that accompanies mental processes but does not interact with them. Then, a series of brain imaging and brain stimulation studies investigate the role of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) in awareness. These studies show that temporary disruption of the TPJ with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) interferes with visual awareness, and that the involvement of the TPJ in visual awareness cannot be accounted for as an artifact of visual attention. These studies also investigate how the involvement of the TPJ in awareness relates to its involvement in a range of other cognitive processes, and how these processes are supported by a network of other brain regions throughout the parietal and frontal cortex.
URI: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp017d278w72h
Alternate format: The Mudd Manuscript Library retains one bound copy of each dissertation. Search for these copies in the library's main catalog: catalog.princeton.edu
Type of Material: Academic dissertations (Ph.D.)
Language: en
Appears in Collections:Psychology

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