They got my experiment wrong, but spelled my name right:
Biology of Consciousness: Bridging the Mind-Body Gap?
The Huffington Post 10/30/14
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Is conscious perception continuous or discrete? Asplund et al use the attentional blink paradigm to demonstrate that conscious perception is discrete and quantal. Attention increases the probability that a representation will reach awareness.
We have argued that cognition is discrete and quantal because the backbone of neural communication used for cognition is oscillatory. For this discussion see:
- Buschman,T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2010) Shifting the Spotlight of Attention: Evidence for Discrete Computations in Cognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 4(194): 1-9. View PDF »
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Pinto et al, despite enough statistical power, fail to see any correlation between performance of a top-down attention task (search) and a bottom-up attention task (singleton capture). They argue that top-down and bottom-up attention systems operate independently.
They cite our work, which suggests that top-down vs bottom up attention signals originate from prefrontal vs parietal cortex:
Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 315: 1860-1862 The Scientist’s “Hot Paper” for October 2009. View PDF » -
Excellent review of an important topic: Working memory capacity. The limitation in working memory capacity is the most objective, easily measured, and tractable property of conscious thought..
Luck and Vogel (2013)Miller Lab work cited:
Siegel, M., Warden, M.R., and Miller, E.K. (2009) Phase-dependent neuronal coding of objects in short-term memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106: 21341-21346. View PDF » -
Propofol-induced unconsciousness decreases posterior alpha rhythms and increases frontal alpha rhythms. Vijayan et al show that this may be due to different actions on posterior vs anterior projecting thalamic nuclei.