There are several projects under way concerning consciousness. They include 1) an exploration of the role of feelings in the construction of subjectivity, 2) the investigation of the neural basis of perspective as a contributor to subjectivity, 3) the attempt to construct conscious artifacts, and 4) the role of sensory integration in the construction of conscious experiences.

One of the remarkable properties of consciousness is that all the different senses can be unified in a single stream of experience. The objects that we see, hear, touch, and so on, can be perceived as bound together, even though it is known that separate regions of the brain are specialized for each sensory modality. We use fMRI and decoding algorithms to understand how the different streams of sensory information are merged by the brain. We aim to map this complex neural architecture to better understand perception, the formation of concepts, and the unified character of conscious experience. We apply the lessons learned from brain data to neural network models of sensory integration. The goal is to improve the performance of machine perception and object recognition, and to understand better how the brain performs such challenging tasks.

Media

“The Mystery of Consciousness: A Dialogue Between a Neuroscientist and a Philosopher. 92nd Street Y, New York, New York, October 6, 2016

 

Investigators

Antonio Damasio, MD, PhD

Jonas Kaplan, PhD

Hanna Damasio, MD

Kingson Man, PhD

Leonardo Christov-Moore, PhD

Gil Carvalho, PhD

Anthony Vaccaro