Unconscious Seeing (original) (raw)

UNCONSCIOUS SEEING LATER REMEMBERED

Aaron Sloman

Originally posted with title "Unconscious seeing".

This file is available as
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/unconscious-seeing.html

A partial index of discussion notes is in
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/AREADME.html

UNNOTICED QUALIA

This is a demonstration that you may see something and be totally unaware that you have seen it, simply because you have not processed the information in the right way. Later, even when the original object is out of sight, you can sometimes discover (even with your eyes closed) what you previously saw, because you still have the information readily available. The qualia were constructed and made available, but not attended to.

However the demonstration will not work for everyone: some people realise immediately what they have seen, and not everyone who fails to see it responds to the prompts when the original presentation is out of sight.

I have been using variants of this experiment in talks on vision for different sorts of audience since the mid 1980s. It usually works on a subset of the audience, e.g. between about 30% and 70% -- though I have not kept detailed records.

Alternative: view the demo on Youtube
There are two versions of the presentation: one uses this web site with a lot of textual material explaining what to do, but having to read the text may interfere with some of the processes.

To avoid that, a video version can be viewed here:https://youtu.be/JxjbIo72Gi8
(I now think that the original version of the video left the text visible for too long. The time has now been shortened (28 Jun 2021).
I suggest trying the video before looking at the non-video version presented below. But if you are unable to view a Youtube video you may find the version below of interest.

How it works

• You will be invited to look at an image containing an English sentence in a rectangular box.
  You should find a familiar announcement in the box.
  Please examine it carefully, to make sure you see just a familiar sentence. If you see something wrong, and you are with somebody who sees nothing wrong,please do not say what you see.Just let the other person or persons continue with the experiment, without your saying anything.
  After looking at the sentence in the box, please close the image because the rest of the experiment depends on your not having it in sight.

• Please look at the test display now (though the Youtube video mentioned above would be better, if you can access it -- in which case ignore the rest of this web page).
  After looking at it, please come back here.

• Click here for the next step.

Please do not read the rest of this page until you have done the experiment.

I think my earliest published reference to the experiment described here was inSloman (1978), "What About Their Internal Languages?" Commentary on three articles

by Premack, D., Woodruff, G., by Griffin, D.R., and by Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., Rumbaugh, D.R., Boysen, S. in_Behavioral and Brain Sciences_ Journal 1978, 1 (4) pp. 515.http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/62-80.html#1978-02

There is an extended discussion of the issues in:

• This online tutorial presentation (PDF and slideshare Flash)
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/talks/#cons09
  Why the "hard" problem of consciousness is easy and the "easy" problem hard.
  (And how to make progress)
• and this paper
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/09.html#906
  Phenomenal and Access Consciousness and the "Hard" Problem:
  A View from the Designer Stance
• Background theory
  For a full explanation of the phenomenon presented here, and many other features of human and animal minds, we need to know about the information processing architecture that constitutes a mind, which typically involves many virtual machines constituting a single complex virtual machine running on layers of virtual machinery ultimately implemented in physical and chemical mechanisms (not all in the perceiver's body -- e.g. surfaces in the environment reflecting light). Some of the high level features of a theory about the role of virtual machinery, ignored by most philosophers, are summarised in this short introduction to "Virtual Machine Functionalism".
  All of this is a development of some of the ideas presented in my 1978 bookThe Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy Science and Models of Mindespecially the points about the system and the environment containing each other, inchapter 6and the ideas about relationships between consciousness and control architecture in chapter 10. See also
• http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/blackmore-zen-consciousness.html
  Some comments on Susan Blackmore's little book "Zen and the Art of Consciousness" (Previously published as "Ten Zen Questions").
• This is a small part of the Meta-Morphogenesis project
  http://tinyurl.com/CogMisc/meta-morphogenesis.html
• Some of the processes of mathematical discovery involve similar mechanisms, since such discoveries often involve noticing an aspect of what you were previously conscious of, but did not notice. Examples, using experiences of triangles can be found in this draft paper: "Hidden Depths of Triangle Qualia: Theorems About Triangles, and Implications for Biological Evolution and AI". The mechanisms involved seem to be closely related to mechanisms required for perception and use of various kinds of affordances (including types not noticed, or discussed, by James Gibson). There are more mathematical examples in this discussion of"Toddler Theorems"
  For more on the need to generalise Gibson's theory of affordances (and fix broken theories about the functions of vision in animals and future robots) see this presentation:What's vision for and how does it work?
• This report on a case of blindsight is also relevant

  "Blind Man Sees With Subconscious Eye" by Joe Palca NPR, 23 December, 2008
  Blind Man Unknowingly Navigates Obstacle Course
  Watch A Video Of The Experiment. (Joe Palca, Kathleen Masterson)
  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98590831&sc=emaf
  "TN has what is known as blind sight, according to de Gelder. Even though the primary part of his brain that processes visual information is destroyed, he still has more primitive parts of his brain intact, and these are capable of doing some visual processing. After all, one of the most basic functions of the visual system is to help an animal avoid obstacles or predators. TN still has some visual abilities - he's just not aware he has them."

• For more philosophical and logical fun and challenges see Ron Barnette'sweb site:
  Zeno's Coffeehouse including an onlinemind-readerpartly related to this site.

Added 13 Mar 2013: Thanks
I am grateful for comments received from Gillian Barker, Andrew Brook, and Ned Block, after I announced the availability of this demo in a philosophy list in March 2013.

Installed: 19 Oct 2009
Last updated: 12 Jun 2019;
8 Dec 2009; 19 Jan 2010; 17 Jul 2011; 5 Mar 2013; 13 Mar 2013; 2 Apr 2014

This work, and everything else on my website, is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
If you use or comment on my ideas please include a URL if possible, so that readers can see the original (or the latest version thereof).
Everything I write is subject to revision as I learn -- so it is usually better to save links than copies -- which are likely to be out of date.
This web page depends on two others that it links to, and an online image displayed in one of them.

Maintained byAaron Sloman
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham