Seeing the content of the mind: Enhanced awareness through working memory in patients with visual extinction
- Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom
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Edited by Dale Purves, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, and approved January 30, 2006 (received for review December 12, 2005)
Abstract
In the present study, we demonstrate that parietal patients with visual extinction show enhanced awareness when there is a match between the current contents of their working memory and the stimuli presented in the visual field. This effect cannot be attributed to automatic bottom-up priming from the presentation of a memory cue, because extinction was reduced only when patients committed the cue to memory, and not when primes were viewed passively or merely identified. The results suggest that reentrant processes, from working memory, modulate awareness.
Footnotes
- *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: d.soto{at}bham.ac.uk
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Author contributions: D.S. and G.W.H. designed research; D.S. and G.W.H. performed research; D.S. and G.W.H. analyzed data; and D.S. and G.W.H. wrote the paper.
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Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
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This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
- © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
