What is the neuronal basis of our subjective conscious experience? Why does neuronal activity in the cortex give rise to consciousness, but not in the cerebellum? Do other animals experience similar subjective experience like us humans? If so, what kind of experience do they have? Can we generate conscious machines or robots? How can we know whether other animals and artifacts have conscious experience?

These fascinating fundamental questions used to be questions only amenable to philosophical speculations, but some of them are beginning to be a target of solid investigations for the neuroscientists. In our lab, we use a multitude of empirical neuroscientific methods to attack the problem of consciousness.

In particular, our current projects focus on:

1. 
   

1. 1.Behavioural effects and neuronal correlates of conscious and non-conscious processing.
   

2. 2.Clarifying the relationship between consciousness and attention.
   

3. 3.Analysis of multi-channel neurophysiological data to understand the neuronal mechanisms of consciousness.
   

4. 4.Testing theories of consciousness, in particular, the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness proposed by Guilio Tononi, using empirical neuronal data. 
   

School of Psychology

Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science

Monash Unicersity