TY - JOUR TI - A new no-report paradigm reveals that face cells encode both consciously perceived and suppressed stimuli AU - Hesse, Janis Karan AU - Tsao, Doris Y A2 - Meng, Ming A2 - de Lange, Floris P A2 - Duchaine, Brad VL - 9 PY - 2020 DA - 2020/11/11 SP - e58360 C1 - eLife 2020;9:e58360 DO - 10.7554/eLife.58360 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58360 AB - A powerful paradigm to identify neural correlates of consciousness is binocular rivalry, wherein a constant visual stimulus evokes a varying conscious percept. It has recently been suggested that activity modulations observed during rivalry may represent the act of report rather than the conscious percept itself. Here, we performed single-unit recordings from face patches in macaque inferotemporal (IT) cortex using a no-report paradigm in which the animal’s conscious percept was inferred from eye movements. We found that large proportions of IT neurons represented the conscious percept even without active report. Furthermore, on single trials we could decode both the conscious percept and the suppressed stimulus. Together, these findings indicate that (1) IT cortex possesses a true neural correlate of consciousness and (2) this correlate consists of a population code wherein single cells multiplex representation of the conscious percept and veridical physical stimulus, rather than a subset of cells perfectly reflecting consciousness. KW - consciousness KW - binocular rivalry KW - no-report paradigm KW - inferotemporal cortex KW - face perception KW - face patch JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -