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Megan A K Peters

Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Center for the Theoretical Behavioral Sciences, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Program in Brain, Mind, & Consciousness, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

3 papers in the library · 16 citations · publishing 2024-2025

Papers

Introspective psychophysics for the study of subjective experience.

Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) January 8, 2025 Megan A K Peters 10 citations

Studying subjective experience is difficult because introspection is often considered unreliable and unverifiable. However, the author argues that these limitations do not prevent building a meaningful psychophysical research program that treats subjective experience as a valid empirical target. By precisely characterizing relationships among environmental variables, brain processes, behavior, and self-reported phenomenology, an 'introspective psychophysics' approach treats introspection's apparent faults as features, not bugs. This approach, echoing recent proposals, aims to establish a powerful tool for building and testing explanatory models of phenomenology across dimensions such as urgency, emotion, clarity, vividness, and confidence.

DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae455 Full text Phenomenology Consciousness Emotion Memory +5

Unconscious Perception of Vernier Offsets.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science January 1, 2024 Pietro Amerio, Matthias Michel, Stephan Goerttler et al. 5 citations

Comparing conscious and unconscious perception is central to consciousness science, but many studies fail to control for criterion biases when assessing awareness. In this study, observers tried to discriminate subjectively invisible offsets of Vernier stimuli, with visibility probed using a bias-free task. Stimuli were made less visible by backward masking or very brief presentation (1-3 milliseconds) using a modern tachistoscope. Some behavioral indicators of perception without awareness appeared, but no conclusive evidence emerged. Bayesian observer model simulations, including models generating visibility judgments alongside type-1 judgments, best fit observers with slightly suboptimal conscious access to sensory evidence. The stimuli and manipulations produced mild blindsight-like behavior, suitable for future investigation.

DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00145 Full text Bias-free task Consciousness Observer model Tachistoscope +1