title: Brain Mechanisms Underlying the Brief Maintenance of Seen and Unseen Sensory Information.
abstract: Recent evidence of unconscious working memory challenges the notion that only visible stimuli can be actively maintained over time. In the present study, we investigated the neural dynamics underlying the maintenance of variably visible stimuli using magnetoencephalography. Subjects had to detect and mentally maintain the orientation of a masked grating. We show that the stimulus is fully encoded in early brain activity independently of visibility reports. However, the presence and orientation of the target are actively maintained throughout the brief retention period, even when the stimulus is reported as unseen. Source and decoding analyses revealed that perceptual maintenance recruits a hierarchical network spanning the early visual, temporal, parietal, and frontal cortices. Importantly, the representations coded in the late processing stages of this network specifically predicted visibility reports. These unexpected results challenge several theories of consciousness and suggest that invisible information can be briefly maintained within the higher processing stages of visual perception.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA; Neuroscience Department, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, 60438 Frankfurt, Germany. Electronic address: jeanremi.king@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jean-Rémi
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, OX1 3UD Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Niccolo
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pescetelli
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA DSV/I2BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, 91191 Gif/Yvette, France; Collège de France, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Stanislas
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dehaene
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D011582:Psychological Theory; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: attention; backward masking; decoding; machine learning; magnetoencephalography; perception; subliminal; temporal generalization; visual awareness; working memory