Talk by Dr. Markus Grüner (University Göttingen): "A hidden modulator of subjective experience? How exogenous attention influences phenomenal consciousness"

Our experience of the world arises from the continuous interplay between external stimuli and the embodied mechanisms that shape how we perceive it. Shifting our gaze alters what we see; shifting our focus changes our mental processes. While we are typically aware of such voluntary changes and their immediate effects, other influences operate automatically and outside awareness yet may still modulate our subjective experience. One such influence is exogenous attention, an automatic selection mechanism that biases visual processing toward specific features or locations. Whether and how exogenous attention affects phenomenal consciousness remains an open question. We investigated this relationship by combining an exogenous cueing procedure with a partial-report iconic memory task. Participants briefly viewed a memory display and later reported the stimulus at an indicated target position. A salient cue preceding the display automatically directed attention either toward the target (valid) or away from it (invalid). Valid cues improved performance compared to no-cue trials, whereas invalid cues reduced it, mirroring effects typically observed with endogenous attention. However, all partial-report tasks share a fundamental methodological flaw: the spatial indicator used for indicating the to-be reported stimulus can itself guide attention, confounding interpretations about attention’s influence on iconic memory and subjective experience. To address this, we developed a non-spatial indicator that carries no inherent location information. Using this improved method, we found that exogenous attention enhances phenomenal consciousness, but crucially, its absence does not diminish it. These results suggest that automatic selection mechanisms can boost conscious experience but are not required for it.

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