RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Contents of Consciousness Investigated as Integrated Information in Direct Human Brain Recordings
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 039032
DO 10.1101/039032
A1 Andrew M. Haun
A1 Masafumi Oizumi
A1 Christopher K. Kovach
A1 Hiroto Kawasaki
A1 Hiroyuki Oya
A1 Matthew A. Howard
A1 Ralph Adolphs
A1 Naotsugu Tsuchiya
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/15/039032.abstract
AB Integrated information theory postulates that the particular way stimuli appear when we consciously experience them arises from integrated information relationships across neural populations. We investigated if such equivalence holds by testing if similar/different percepts map onto similar/different information structures. We computed integrated information structure from intracranial EEGs recorded in 6 neurosurgical patients who had electrodes implanted over posterior cortices. During recording, we dissociated subjective percepts from physical inputs in three distinct stimulus paradigms (passive viewing, continuous flash suppression, and backward masking). Unsupervised classification showed that integrated information within stimulus-selective cortical regions classified visual experiences with significant accuracy (peaking on average around 64% classification accuracy). Classification by other relevant information theoretic measures such as mutual information and entropy was consistently poorer (56% and 54% accuracy). The findings argue that concepts from integrated information theory are empirically testable, promising a potential link between conscious experience and informational structures.