Believing is hearing is believing
Advances in Consciousness Research October 28, 2010 William Sedley
Auditory consciousness encompasses familiar experiences like hearing and imagining sounds, as well as rarer ones like tinnitus and hearing voices. This chapter presents a simplified model of the auditory system that distinguishes bottom-up signals from lower pathways and top-down influences from higher evaluative mechanisms. Using this model, auditory perception, hallucinations, and illusions are explained as minor variations from normal functioning. Neuroimaging and electrophysiological correlates are discussed, highlighting their current inability to qualitatively differentiate conscious from unconscious auditory processes, and suggesting future approaches to address this limitation.