SESSION 3: Attention, Consciousness and Perception

Please join us for the third session of the Attention Reading Group organised by the Centre for Attention Studies at King’s College London. This session will be guest-led by Dr James Stazicker from the Department of Philosophy.

SESSION 3: Attention, Consciousness and Perception

Reading: Wayne Wu, ‘Consciousness and Attention’ in The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness. Ed. Rocco J. Gennaro (NY and Abingdon: Routledge, 2018).

Although the title says ‘Consciousness’, the text is all about conscious perception and attention. It’s short (11 pages) and simply written. It gives a philosopher’s take on what the empirical evidence really tells us about the relationship between attention and perceptual experience, introducing several issues that have occupied philosophers over the last few years – e.g. how to understand ‘unconscious attention', ‘inattentional blindness’, and evidence that attention makes things appear more colourful, more intense, etc. They’re all things James will be discussing with us in the session.

For the KCL participants, the text is available from this link with a King’s login. A PDF copy of the text will also be sent to all registered participants, together with a Teams link for the meeting.

IMPORTANT: BEFORE you read the text, please watch this short video, by way of conducting a short experiment on yourself. (Again, it’s important to do it BEFORE reading the text.)

This event is open to all and free to attend, booking is required.

Participants from outside the KCL community who haven’t attended any of the previous sessions are most welcome to join the Reading Group, but, as well as making a booking, they need to click on ‘Contact the event organiser’ on the booking page, choose the option ‘I have a question related to an event’ and email us with a brief introduction about themselves.