[SydPhil] Fwd: Nao Tsuchiya talk on consciousness and integrated information - Macquarie, Mon 15 Sept

[John Sutton]

Enquiries to Genevieve Quek, genevieve.quek at mq.edu.au

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Genevieve Quek <genevieve.quek at mq.edu.au>
Date: Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 8:54 PM
Subject: [Cogsci Everyone] PARC Talk: Nao Tsuchiya - Monday 15th September

Hi everyone,
Nao Tsuchiya will be visiting PARC on Monday 15th September. Please join us
for his talk that day. You can learn more about Nao's research interests at
his homepage
<http://users.monash.edu/~naotsugt/Tsuchiya_Labs_Homepage/HOME.html>.

*When: *Monday 15th September, 1.30pm
*Where: *AHH Level 1 Lecture Theatre

*Title: *The Structure of Integrated Information Correlates with the
Contents of Consciousness

*Abstract*

The Integrated information theory (IIT) aims to explain how our conscious
phenomenology is supported by the mechanisms in the brain.  The IIT
predicts that a pattern of integrated information generated by
sub-mechanisms of the system corresponds to the contents of consciousness.
 Previously, we invented phi*, a well-behaving approximation of the
originally proposed theoretical quantity, phi.  Here, we set out to test
the prediction by measuring a pattern or structure of phi*, based on field
potentials recorded with intracranial electrodes in awake epilepsy
patients. The patients performed several visual psychophysical tasks,
including backward masking and continuous flash suppression.  We found a
structure of phi*, constructed from the face selective areas in the ventral
or lateral temporal lobe, without any supervised learning, classified
subjective visual experience of faces, rather than properties of physical
visual input of faces. We ruled out a possibility that high dimensionality
of the phi*-pattern was sufficient for such categorization by analysing
high-dimensional pattern derived by other quantities (e.g., entropy and
mutual information) as well as phi* structure derived from other areas that
are not selective to faces; both cases poorly reflected subjective
experience compared to phi* structure derived from the face selective
areas.  In sum, without any training or decoding, high-dimensional phi*
structure naturally mirrored subjective experience of faces, supporting an
idea that IIT as a possible solution to the Hard problem; why phenomenology
has to arise from particular mechanisms in certain states.

Cheers,
Gen Q

-- 
Genevieve Quek

PhD / M Clinical Neuropsychology Candidate
Cognition in Action Lab Manager

ARC Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders
Department of Cognitive Science
Macquarie University

ph:      +61 2 9850 4436
email:  genevieve.quek at mq.edu.au
-- 
Professor John Sutton
Deputy Head, Department of Cognitive Science
Macquarie University, Sydney,
NSW 2109, Australia
Phone: +61 (0)2 9850 4132
Email: john.sutton at mq.edu.au
URL: http://www.johnsutton.net/
http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/
http://mq.academia.edu/JohnSutton
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