Consciousness and cognition
April 1, 2020
Jona Förster, Mika Koivisto, Antti Revonsuo
176 citations
The earliest and most reliable brain signal linked to visual phenomenal consciousness is the visual awareness negativity (VAN), a negative voltage deflection occurring around 200-300 milliseconds after a stimulus appears over posterior scalp regions. A later positive component, the late positivity (LP), which appears over frontal areas around 300-500 milliseconds, likely reflects later cognitive processes such as reflective or access consciousness rather than phenomenal awareness itself. This conclusion is supported by a review of event-related potential and magnetoencephalography studies published since 2010 that directly compared brain responses to consciously perceived versus unseen stimuli. The evidence strengthens VAN's role as the primary neural correlate of phenomenal consciousness and further undermines LP as a marker of phenomenal awareness.
Neuropsychologia
November 1, 2009
Mika Koivisto, Pasi Kainulainen, Antti Revonsuo
107 citations
Visual attention and awareness are intricately linked, but different types of attention play distinct roles. Experiments tracking brain responses show that spatial attention is necessary for the earliest brain correlate of phenomenal consciousness—the raw experience of seeing. This early marker emerged regardless of whether objects were selected by nonspatial attention, though later parts of it were modified by such selection. In contrast, the brain correlate of reflective consciousness, which allows the contents of phenomenal experience to be used for thought and memory, depended on both spatial attention and nonspatial selection. These findings indicate that the relationship between attention and awareness requires distinguishing between different forms of attention and different levels of consciousness.
NeuroImage
April 15, 2025
Dmitri Filimonov, Saana Lenkkeri, Mika Koivisto et al.
6 citations
The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) for auditory awareness include auditory awareness negativity (AAN) and late positivity (LP), but it is unclear which is the true NCC. By inducing simple auditory hallucinations through a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm, where participants rated near-threshold tones and stimulus-absent trials, AAN appeared as an early event-related potential difference between aware and unaware stimuli, suggesting it is a genuine NCC for auditory consciousness. Late positivity was absent in these hallucinations, indicating it may not be essential for auditory awareness.
Cognitive neuroscience
September 1, 2010
Antti Revonsuo, Mika Koivisto
3 citations
Event-related brain potential (ERP) evidence supports two key ideas in Lamme's theory of consciousness. The earliest brain signal linked to visual consciousness appears over the back of the head about 100-200 milliseconds after a stimulus is presented, consistent with recurrent processing in visual cortex. This early signal is largely separate from later brain responses that reflect selective attention and working memory. The findings suggest that phenomenal consciousness of a visual stimulus arises before access consciousness, and that attention and awareness rely on different neural processes.
NeuroImage
January 29, 2026
Dmitri Filimonov, Mika Koivisto, Antti Revonsuo
The most reliable brain-activity markers of visual consciousness, measured with EEG, are an early component called visual awareness negativity (VAN) and a later component called late positivity (LP). Three prior reviews concluded that VAN is specifically tied to awareness, while LP also reflects other mental processes. This review of 53 new studies published since 2020 confirms that VAN remains the most robust neural correlate of visual consciousness, whereas LP is not uniquely linked to consciousness. However, questions remain about how VAN relates to attention and other physiological factors.