14 DAY TRIAL // The conclusions of a new study of the human brain have placed researchers at the University of Arizona in a tricky situation. Their work has determined that the human brain is capable of processing visual inputs even when we are not consciously aware of this, but this result goes against existing models of how the human brain works.
The patterns in which the human brain processes visual information have been topics of intense debate in the scientific community, and developing a model to explain available data took a long time. The new study has the potential to again turn the model on its head, hence the controversy it caused.
“Many, many theorists assume that because it takes a lot of energy for brain processing, that the brain is only going to spend time processing what you’re ultimately going to perceive,” says UA professor of psychology, Dr. Mary Peterson. A paper detailing the findings appeared in the latest issue of the journal Psychological Sciences.
What the new study found is that the brain indeed decides what people perceive consciously, but only after analyzing all the information it is presented with, and after deciding on the meaning of each input. Researcher now plan to conduct another study to determine where in the brain this unconscious processing occurs, PsychCentral reports.