Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness
Humans have been shown capable of performing many cognitive tasks using information of which they are not consciously aware. This raises questions about what role consciousness actually plays in cognition. Here, we explored whether participants can learn cue-target contingencies in an attentional le...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
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SAGE Publications
2018
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| _version_ | 1826302735540027392 |
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| author | Travers, E Frith, CD Shea, N |
| author_facet | Travers, E Frith, CD Shea, N |
| author_sort | Travers, E |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Humans have been shown capable of performing many cognitive tasks using information of which they are not consciously aware. This raises questions about what role consciousness actually plays in cognition. Here, we explored whether participants can learn cue-target contingencies in an attentional learning task when the cues were presented below the level of conscious awareness, and how this differs from learning about conscious cues. Participants’ manual (Experiment 1) and saccadic (Experiment 2) response speeds were influenced by both conscious and unconscious cues. However, participants were only able to adapt to reversals of the cue-target contingencies (Experiment 1) or changes in the reliability of the cues (Experiment 2) when consciously aware of the cues. Therefore, although visual cues can be processed unconsciously, learning about cues over a few trials requires conscious awareness of them. Finally, we discuss implications for cognitive theories of consciousness. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T05:52:04Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:e93b4d0d-a43d-4c4b-b5f7-defe1a693f00 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T05:52:04Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:e93b4d0d-a43d-4c4b-b5f7-defe1a693f002022-03-27T10:52:47ZLearning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awarenessJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:e93b4d0d-a43d-4c4b-b5f7-defe1a693f00Symplectic Elements at OxfordSAGE Publications2018Travers, EFrith, CDShea, NHumans have been shown capable of performing many cognitive tasks using information of which they are not consciously aware. This raises questions about what role consciousness actually plays in cognition. Here, we explored whether participants can learn cue-target contingencies in an attentional learning task when the cues were presented below the level of conscious awareness, and how this differs from learning about conscious cues. Participants’ manual (Experiment 1) and saccadic (Experiment 2) response speeds were influenced by both conscious and unconscious cues. However, participants were only able to adapt to reversals of the cue-target contingencies (Experiment 1) or changes in the reliability of the cues (Experiment 2) when consciously aware of the cues. Therefore, although visual cues can be processed unconsciously, learning about cues over a few trials requires conscious awareness of them. Finally, we discuss implications for cognitive theories of consciousness. |
| spellingShingle | Travers, E Frith, CD Shea, N Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| title | Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| title_full | Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| title_fullStr | Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| title_full_unstemmed | Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| title_short | Learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| title_sort | learning rapidly about the relevance of visual cues requires conscious awareness |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT traverse learningrapidlyabouttherelevanceofvisualcuesrequiresconsciousawareness AT frithcd learningrapidlyabouttherelevanceofvisualcuesrequiresconsciousawareness AT shean learningrapidlyabouttherelevanceofvisualcuesrequiresconsciousawareness |