Visual awareness of objects correlates with activity of right occipital cortex.

ABSTRACT

In the search for human neural correlates of visual awareness, cortical magnetic responses to coherent and meaningful objects were compared with responses to disorganized and meaningless non-objects when observers tried to detect the coherent objects. Three brief stimulus durations were included to vary the detection rate of the objects. Of the multiple brain regions activated, only the right lateral occipital cortex showed signals correlating with the proportion of correct object detections. The results suggest an important role for this area in visual awareness of objects.