The cognitive and behavioral significance of consciousness

What is the cognitive and behavioral significance of consciousness? Although it might seem obvious on the face of it, this is another instance where it is crucial to properly distinguish the roles of type 1 and type 2 processing. Much of the cognitive significance that we attribute to conscious awareness may be attributable to strong type 1 processing, rather than being specific to type 2 processing per se (Graves, Maniscalco, & Lau, 2010).

Indeed, in a study where type 1 processing was equated, we did not find evidence that differences in confidence corresponded to differences in cognitive control (Koizumi, Maniscalco, & Lau, 2015). In another study, we found evidence that the strength of perceptual processing of distractors interfered with performance on a primary task (Maniscalco et al., 2012). However, in this study we were not able to achieve the intended dissociation between type 1 and type 2 processing of the distractors, so inference regarding the role of the subjective visibility of the distractors per se remains obscure.

I have also used a combination of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), electroencephalography (EEG), and computational modeling to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the formation of conscious intentions to initiate spontaneous movements in the classic Libet task (Douglas, Maniscalco, et al., 2015).

References

Graves, T., Maniscalco, B., & Lau, H. (2010). Volition and the Function of Consciousness. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong & L. Nadel (Eds.), Conscious Will and Responsibility: A Tribute to Benjamin Libet (pp.109-123). Oxford University Press.

Koizumi, A., Maniscalco, B., & Lau, H. (2015). Does perceptual confidence facilitate cognitive control? Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 77(4), 1295–1306. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-015-0843-3

Maniscalco, B., Bang, J. W., Iravani, L., Camps-Febrer, F., & Lau, H. (2012). Does response interference depend on the subjective visibility of flanker distractors? Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 74(5), 841–851. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-012-0291-2

Douglas, Z.*, Maniscalco, B.*, Hallett, M., Wassermann, E. M., He, B. J. (2015). Modulating conscious movement intention by noninvasive brain stimulation and the underlying neural mechanisms. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35(18), 7239-7255. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4894-14.2015