How chromatic phenomenality largely overflow its cognitive accessibility.

Summary

Some theories propose that the brain regions supporting visual phenomenal consciousness (rich subjective experience) are separate from those supporting access consciousness (information used for reasoning and reporting). If phenomenal consciousness relies on early visual cortex, which contains detailed color information, then our intuition of rich visual experience is plausible. During perception, cognitive access to this detailed information uses concepts that summarize complex visual properties, containing much less information than the actual experience. This suggests phenomenal consciousness holds more information than access consciousness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

It has been suggested (Block, 2007) that the core neural bases for visual phenomenal consciousness and for access consciousness are located in anatomically separate regions. If this is correct, and if, as Block suggests, the core neural substrate of visual phenomenality is located early in the visual cortex where detailed chromatic information is available, then it would be reasonable to infer that our intuitions of chromatically rich visual phenomenality are plausible. It is furthermore suggested that during perception cognitive access to this chromatic cornucopia is mediated through mereologically superordinate (MS) concepts that regionally characterize both semantic and quantitative integrated properties within complex visual percepts. Such concepts contain much less information than do the particulars that they characterize, implying that the information represented in phenomenal consciousness greatly exceeds the information in the accompanying access consciousness.