Predictive Coding Is Unconscious, so that Consciousness Happens Now

A Reply to Lucia Melloni

Author

Victor Lamme

Victorlamme @ gmail.com

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Commentator

Lucia Melloni

lucia.melloni @ brain.mpg.de

Max Planck Institute for Brain Research

Frankfurt a. M., Germany

Editors

Thomas Metzinger

metzinger @ uni-mainz.de

Johannes Gutenberg-Universität

Mainz, Germany

Jennifer M. Windt

jennifer.windt @ monash.edu

Monash University

Melbourne, Australia

Conscious percepts depend strongly on past events. Expectations, primes, and prior experiences all shape the percept we have at any moment in time. Yet does this imply that conscious experience should be viewed as extended in time—as “flowing”—instead of as just happening now?

Keywords

Bayesian framework | Inference | Predictive coding | Snapshot vision | Spatial integration | Stream of consciousness | Temporal integration