CONSCIOUSNESS

3. Cognitive Sciences and Psychology 133
tions and the scale anchors differed. We determined (1) which scale correlated best and most
consistently with performance (indicating awareness), and (2) whether we could detect abovechance
performance in the absence of awareness and how the scales differ from each other in
terms of revealing such unconscious processing. Our results indicated (1) that PAS was more
exhaustive than CR in detecting conscious influences on performance, and that CR in turn was
more exhaustive than PDW. Furthermore, people using PDW were more inclined to give low
wagers for stimulus intensities for which it was clear from PAS that they were mostly perceived
consciously, which can be explained by participants being risk aversive. Crucially, the
same was true for CR: even though it fared slightly better than PDW, participants claimed to
be guessing for stimuli that PAS showed to be processed consciously - something that cannot
be explained by risk aversion, as there is no risk involved in reporting confidence. In fact, we
found little evidence for any above chance performance in the absence of awareness. One interpretation
of our results is that participants perform the task exactly as instructed. When they
are asked to specifically report what they experience, this is what they will do. Likewise, when
asked to wager, they think about pros and cons of different bids, and when asked to report their
confidence, they consider how much they trust the correctness of the report they just issued.
Thus, other cognitive processes than those specifically related to the experience influence
the results in these latter two cases. One could for example wager low even though one had
some confidence in order to minimize loss; similarly, one could have little confidence in the
correctness of one’s response even though one perceived (parts of) the stimulus pretty clearly.
For instance, if a person has a crystal-clear perception of some non-discriminative part of the
stimulus, they will have to guess, but one would be hard pressed to conclude that the person
did not see anything at all. Such states of “partial awareness” highlight the fact that which
measure is most appropriate to assess awareness very much depends on what one intends to
measure. The current results suggest that in cases where it is possible to ask the participant to
report their conscious experience directly, such as perception, only PAS can be recommended
to measure conscious experience. In other words: just ask people what they saw. P3
3.10 Sleep and dreaming
181 Motor Recruitment of Mirror Neuron Areas During REM Dreams: Performing
Artists, Mirror-Practiced, Limb Motions Kristen Corman
(English, Allston, MA)
This work interrelates mirror systems, biological motion, and REM sleep’s correlation
with dreams to explore potential links between each system’s visuo-motor simulation of
movement. The neural motor activation and output blockade of both mirror circuits in awake
subjects and motor experience during REM dreams open the possibility of other patterns
between the two brain states and their neural correlates. Are mirror neuron areas activated
or recruited during REM sleep? ( F5, F4, IPL, PF [BA 7b], STSp, STSa, and Broca, see
Iacoboni; Rizzolatti; Calvo-Merino; Grossman. Procedural visuomotor learning, Stickgold.)
Motor neurons are as active in REM sleep as in waking, and REM dreams are distinguished
by movement (Hobson 2009). Though dreamers don’t see a perceptual experience generated
from external stimuli, they do experience “fictive” movements and visions (Porte; Grillner).
REM activates parietal visual spatial attention (Antrobus).The oculomotor circuit is activated
in REMs (Hong, 2009). If the F4, F5, IPL regions are activated, and if REM dreams occur,
is the mirror mechanism that matches observation and action during awake perception also
at play, in some form, during REM dream experience of movement? The formal features of
REM sleep dreams may give us a window onto what aspects of simulation are activated or inhibited.
Subjective dream-reports, preparatory to a future quantitative study, probe the dreamtime
motor experience of professional dancers and musicians. Do artists practice, perform,
or do specific or general movements while dreaming? While mirror neuron systems facilitate
simulative relations in humans (Iacoboni, 2008), performing artists practice skilled motion
for hours using either a literal mirror-apparatus (dancers) or ipsilateral, “specular” (Koski,
2003) limb mimicry of the demonstrator who acts “as if a mirror” to facilitate learning (dancers,
musicians). Awake, mirror neurons activate four times more strongly when adults imitate
finger movement “as if in front of a mirror” (Iacoboni, 2008:68; Koski, 2003). Do artists ever