視覚的クオリアとアウェアネスの関連性と絵画作品(第21回大会 シンポジウム2 視知覚研究のゆくえ)

抄録

Qualia and awareness are important constituents of consciousness. Qualia correspond to the consciousness of sensory qualities and have close relationships to the activities of sensory modules that have been clarified neurophysiologically. In contrast, awareness corresponds to the consciousness of things. This process is much related to object recognition processes, not directly tied to a sensory modality. The relationships between awareness and qualia have not been discussed well. In the present study, we tentatively assume a weak correlation between visual qualia and awareness and we classified various paintings into four groups by the combination of low or high activation levels of awareness and qualia. In each group, the common characteristics of paintings are discussed in relation to specific brain functions. We also consider the theoretical importance of our classification referring to the views on art and perception proposed by Ramachandran & Hirstein (1999) and Gregory (1998).