Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland; Turku Brain and Mind Centre, University of Turku, Finland. Electronic address: henry.railo@utu.fi.
2 papers in the library · 5 citations · publishing 2019-2025
Vocal responses to unexpected changes in auditory feedback occur even when speakers are unaware of the change. In 30 participants, individually calibrated pitch shifts were applied during vocalization, and after each trial participants reported whether they consciously detected the shift. Compensatory vocal adjustments were present on trials where the shift went unnoticed. Conscious detection of the shift led to larger vocal responses roughly 500-700 milliseconds later and was associated with early (auditory awareness negativity) and late (late positivity) brain signals. Source localization linked conscious detection to increased activity in temporal, frontal, and parietal cortical networks involved in speech motor control. The findings suggest that consciousness modulates the magnitude and neural correlates of speech feedback control.
The typical empirical approach to studying consciousness holds that we can only observe the neural correlates of experiences, not the experiences themselves. This paper argues, in contrast, that experiences are concrete physical phenomena that can causally interact with other phenomena, including observers, and therefore can be observed and scientifically modelled. The epistemic gap between an experience and a scientific model of its neural mechanisms stems from the fact that the model is a theoretical construct distinct from the concrete phenomenon it models, similar to any natural phenomenon and its model. A neuroscientific theory of the constitutive mechanisms of an experience is thus a model of the subjective experience itself, providing a solid basis for the empirical study of consciousness.