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perception, attention, and consciousness

How brain processes give rise to conscious perception is a key question for the relationship between
brain and mind. This topic is jointly addressed by several coordinated research groups in the Mind and
Brain School.

Specifically, our work is on characterizing the information flow from basic low-level sensory signal
processing all the way up to conscious perception. This scope is made possible by the combination of
research approaches in Berlin, ranging from studies of sensory processing in animals to human
neuroimaging studies directly addressing conscious and unconscious processing. Of special importance
is also the tight integration with computational modeling and philosophy, two fields that provide
important analytical and conceptual frameworks for research on the neural correlates of consciousness.
We will work on four major projects:

Sensory signal processing.
The first group of projects on sensory signal processing does not yet address a Mind and Brain topic (in
the narrow sense), however it provides crucial insight into basic mechanisms underlying the first steps in
the flow of information eventually leading to conscious perception. Using the many different recording
techniques available in Berlin we are able to study animal and human information processing in visual,
auditory, and somatosensory systems. These investigations clarify fundamental computational principles
of sensory information processing, which have played a key role in research on conscious perception.

Determinants of conscious and unconscious perception.
The second field, determinants of conscious and unconscious perception, addresses the fundamental
question at which stage neural information processing leads to conscious perception, and how
conscious and unconscious information processing might differ in terms of their underlying neural
mechanisms. Of special importance is our combination of research on multiple modalities (vision,
audition, touch) to reveal potential general, supramodal determinants of conscious perception.

Neural encoding of conscious perception.
Our third key field, neural encoding of conscious perception, addresses a complementary question:
which brain areas encode specific types of sensations in a fashion that can explain how the external
world appears to human observers. At some point in processing, sensory signals that reflect physical
stimulus parameters are transformed into percept-based signals that reflect a persons conscious
perception. In most cases physical and perceptual aspects are highly correlated, but in certain cases the
two aspects can be experimentally dissociated. Our studies of perceptual illusions where the
representation of external stimuli is not veridical but distorted provide such a case. Remarkably, a
recently emerging technique, the application of machine learning and decoding techniques to human
neuroimaging signals, has also provided a powerful framework for studying encoding of conscious
perception.

Neurophilosophy of phenomenal consciousness.
The fourth key field, neurophilosophy of phenomenal consciousness, plays the important role of
providing theoretical frameworks for integrating and focusing the empirical research, while analyzing
the implications for theories of the relationship between mind and brain. Taken together these research
projects offer a unique combination of empirical, computational and philosophical expertise that is
already providing important insights into the neural mechanisms that lead from low-level sensory signals
to conscious perception of our external world.

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