The document outlines the curriculum for week 12 of a course on the neural basis of consciousness, focusing on integrated information theory (IIT) and its implications for understanding qualia and brain relationships. It highlights empirical questions for future research and discusses the importance of qualia structures and causality structures in consciousness studies. Additionally, the document emphasizes the interdisciplinary impacts of consciousness research across various fields and the necessity for developing new empirical paradigms.

1. Week 12
Neural basis of consciousness:
Frontiers in Consciousness Research
Prof Nao Tsuchiya
Twitter: @conscious_tlab
Email: naotsugu.tsuchiya@monash.edu
Facebook: Naotsugu Tsuchiya

2. Recap of Wk 11
Outline of Integrated Information Theory (IIT)
Level, Border and Contents of consciousness
How to compute integrated information & complex
IIT explanations on consciousness in patients:
without cerebellum, split brain and conjoined twins

3. In Wk 12,
We will:
Outline frontiers in consciousness research
with some exemplar research from my lab,
List empirical questions
with strategies, frameworks and techniques
for future research, and
Situate consciousness research in a broader context

4. Learning Objectives
To be able to answer the following questions:
● What does IIT propose about qualia?
● How can we characterize qualia structures?
● What are the possible empirical experiments that can be
used to reveal the relationship between qualia and brain?
● What are societal impacts of consciousness research?
Optional: Maier & Tsuchiya 2020 APP

5. Remaining questions from Week 11
How does IIT explain contents of consciousness (=qualia)?
Level - big Phi
Border - Complex
Qualia - a connected pattern of small Phis
IIT and qualia

6. Remaining questions from Week 11
How does IIT explain contents of consciousness?
Level - big Phi
Border - Complex
Qualia - a connected pattern of small Phis
IIT and qualia

7. Fundamental questions in consciousness research
The link between mind and matters
More specifically, qualia and brain
We have lots of clues about the link!
IIT and qualia

8. Why stimulating these areas elicit qualia of
color and face?
Schalk 2017 PNAS
IIT and qualia

9. Clues from previous research
FFA, V4/V8, MT, ...
Neural activity in these areas are strongly
correlated with,
necessary for (lesions specifically abolishes), and
can elicit (when stimulated)
qualia for faces, motion, and color.
WHY?
IIT and qualia

10. We need to understand
1. Qualia structures
2. Causality structures
3. Relationship
between these
structures
Tsuchiya 2016 Neurosci Res
IIT and qualia

11. We need to understand
1. Qualia structures
2. Causality structures
3. Relationship
between these
structures
Tsuchiya 2016 Neurosci Res
IIT and qualia

12. What are causality structures?
Brain - a huge network of neurons.
1011
neurons (1010
people in the earth).
1000-10000 synapses
per neuron.
Each exciting or
inhibiting the others.
IIT and qualia

13. Integrated information theory
Information:
“Intrinsic information” =
The way the network causally constrains its past and future.
Neuron A
Neuron B
Current
CopyCopy
IIT and qualia

14. Repeat this
IIT and qualia

15. Causality structures
In a simulated network
Haun & Tononi 2019 Entropy
IIT and qualia

16. Computing causality structures in fly brains
IIT and qualia

17. General anesthesia collapse causality structures
IIT and qualia
Leung, Cohen, van Swinderen, Tsuchiya 2020 bioRxiv

18. Is there any relationship between causality structure and qualia?
Haun et al 2017 eNeuro
IIT and qualia

19. Haun et al 2017 eNeuro
IIT and qualia

20. Haun et al 2017 eNeuro
Promising relationship between causality structure and qualia!
IIT and qualia

21. Are causality structures related to qualia?
Unique in FFA, V4/V8, MT, …?
Can we compute them from single neuron activity?
IIT and qualia

22. Better and better neurotechnology!
Maier & Tsuchiya 2020 APP
IIT and qualia

23. Summary:
Integrated information can be computed in a hierarchical
manner.
We can estimate causality structures of neural network.
Causality structures should depend on specific neural
connectivity within an area as well as between areas
Can causality structures explain different qualia?
IIT and qualia

25. Can we directly compare causality structures and qualia?
We first need to understand qualia structures better!
1. Qualia structures
2. Causality structures
3. Relationship
between these
structures
Qualia structures

26. What are qualia structures?
Qualia structures

27. Face qualia:
Compositionality
Qualia structures

28. Color qualia: counterfactual similarity
No two color qualia in the same
spacetime (like taste, smell,
touch), but other
(visual/auditory) qualia can (e.g.,
motion, face, sound).
Loss of color is its entirety
bound to space.
> Implication for neural circuitry
and causality structures?
Qualia structures

29. How can we examine and characterize qualia structures?
Classical psychophysics:
Did you see A?
Qualia structure psychophysics:
What did you see? (Verbal or other richer reports)
How did you see? (Similarity, inclusion, and other relations)
Qualia structures

30. What did you see?
Traditional estimate of information: ~ 40 bits/s.
This result doesn’t seem to match with our usual feeling of
“richness” of any moment of consciousness!
Norretranders 1991
Classic paradigm:
Did you see “A”?
Qualia structures

31. Massive report paradigm
Koh, Gallagher, Nishimoto, Tsuchiya (2019 SOBR poster; in preparation)
Are the classic
results reflecting the
limitation in stimuli
and reports?
Qualia structures

32. Massive report paradigm
Lots of images
(impossible to expect)
(Semi-) free reports
Online participants
(>600)
Qualia structures

33. Massive report paradigm
Liang, Gallagher, Nishimoto, Tsuchiya (2019 SOBR poster; in preparation)
Qualia structures

34. What do you see?
Generally, the massive report paradigms reveal structure of
experience that matches with our (reasonable) intuition.
Any moment of experience seems highly structured.
People can differentiate many different concepts and
images without much difficulty.
Qualia structures

35. How do we see?
Similarity ratings:
“Similar”
“Very
dissimilar”
Qualia structures

36. Structure of color qualia
Do we see color in the periphery? (Week 4-5)
Qualia structures

37. Are similarity structures equivalent across visual fields?
? ?
?
Qualia structures

38. Color similarity task
Qualia structures

39. Qualia structures

40. Individual differences with equivalent structures!
Fovea
Peri
Qualia structures

41. Summary
Qualia structures can be examined by addressing:
What do we see?
How do we see?
For these qualia structure psychophysics, various paradigms
and tools need to be developed!
Qualia structures

43. We need to understand
1. Qualia structures
2. Causality structures
3. Relationship
between these
structures
Tsuchiya 2016 Neurosci Res
Relations between structures

44. Face qualia:
Compositionality
Relations between structures

45. FFA neurons?
Relations between structures

46. Relations between structures

47. Promising experimental paradigm: Rewiring
Sur 2001 Nature Rev Neuro
Relations between structures

48. Sur 2001 Nature Rev Neuro
Promising experimental paradigm: Rewiring
Relations between structures

49. Von Melchner 2000 Nature
Promising experimental paradigm: Rewiring
Relations between structures

50. Summary:
Once qualia structures and causality structures are obtained,
we need a mathematical theory to test their correspondence.
(Category theory is highly promising).
To understand these structural relationships, there are many
empirical paradigms can be used (e.g., rewiring paradigm,
individual differences, synaesthesia, congenital blind, etc).
Relations between structures

52. Concluding remarks!
Consciousness impacts

53. Consciousness
Clinical
EngineeringAcademic
Curiosity
Artificial intelligence
Robotics
Brain-Machine interface
Consciousness-meter
Restoring qualia
Sensory substitutionMind vs matter
Laws in physics
Development
Evolution Organoid
Societal impacts of consciousness research
Consciousness impacts

54. Consciousness
Clinical science
Engineering
Artificial intelligence Robotics
Development
Information theory
Pharmacology
Philosophy
Computer science
Physics
Mathematics
Linguistics
Psychology Neuroscience
Cognitive
Evolution
Ethics
Biology
Interdisciplinary research on consciousness !
Consciousness impacts

55. Concluding remarks
Disclaimer:
1. The views we provided are highly simplified and can be
misleading and biased.
There are a lot to learn in this field!
2. Almost everything in this course material is likely to be
revised in the future!
Consciousness impacts

56. Concluding remarks
Consciousness is so fundamental that people may even not
notice how mysterious its relationship with brains!
As such, consciousness may be one of the best study
materials to improve your skills to be critical, empirical,
quantitative, and logical. These are crucial skills for your
future!
Hope you enjoyed the class! And good luck with your future!Consciousness impacts

57. Thanks! And good luck with your future!
Acknowledgement: collaborators and lab members in the
Past, Current, and Future!