University of Hertfordshire

Background

Research is carried out on consciousness, attention and space in healthy people and neurological and clinical patients. Current work is on (a) perceptual migration and its relation to neglect and allochiria, (b) anosognosia for (unawareness of) hemiplegia and its relation to delusional states, (c) touch: its relation to other modalities and spatial frames of reference. Professor Marcel has a continuing interest in emotion experience in relation to consciousness, attention and self-experience.

(a) A proportion of healthy people show high susceptibility to migration of perceptual content from unattended locations to an attended location, in touch, audition and vision (Marcel et al, 2004, 2006). This is equivalent to allochiria, associated with neglect. We propose that much neglect and extinction is underlain by this, whereby contralesional stimuli migrate to and experientially replace or fuse with ipsilesional ones. Preliminary data suggest that susceptibility to migration (a) is genetic, (b) is related to narrow spatial attention and weak binding, (c) indicates a predisposition to persisting neglect if such healthy individuals suffer appropriate brain damage. We are also testing the extent to which symptoms of neglect in neurological patients reflect migration.

Relevant recent papers:

Lambie, J.A. and Marcel, A.J. Consciousness and Emotion Experience: a Theoretical Framework. Psychological Review. 2002, 109. 219-259. (APA: “Modern Classic”, 2003)

Marcel, A.J. The Sense of Agency: Awareness and Ownership of Actions and Intentions. In Roessler J. and Eilan N. (Eds) Agency and Self Awareness, Oxford University Press. 2003

Marcel, A.J. Introspective Report: Trust, Self Knowledge and Science.
Journal of Consciousness Studies. 2003, 10 (9) 167 – 186.

Marcel, A.J., Tegnér, R. and Nimmo-Smith, I. Anosognosia for plegia: specificity, extension, partiality, and disunity of bodily unawareness. Cortex, 2004, 40, 19 -40.

Marcel, A. J. and Lambie J. A. How many selves in emotion experience? Psychological Review. 2004, 111, 820-826.

Marcel, A., Postma, P., Gillmeister, H., Cox, S., Rorden, C., Nimmo-Smith, I., Mackintosh, B.. Tactile Migration and Fusion in Healthy People – Premorbid Susceptibility to Allochiria, Neglect and Extinction? Neuropsychologia, 2004, 42, 1749-1767.

Marcel, A.J. and Dobel, C. Structured Perceptual Input Imposes and Maintains an
Egocentric Frame of Reference – Pointing, Imagery and Spatial Self-Consciousness. Perception. 2005, 34 (4), 429-451.

Nimmo-Smith, I, Marcel, A.J., & Tegnér, R. A diagnostic test of unawareness of bilateral motor abilities in anosognosia for hemiplegia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 2005, 76, 1167-1169.

Marcel, A.J., Mackintosh, B., Postma, P., Cusack, R., Vuckovich, J., Nimmo-Smith, I., Cox, S.M.L. Is susceptibility to perceptual migration and fusion modality-specific or multimodal? Neuropsychologia, 2006, 44, 693-710.

Muggleton, N, Postma, P., Moutsopoulou, K., Nimmo-Smith, I., Marcel, A.J. & Walsh, V. TMS over right posterior parietal cortex induces neglect in a scene-based frame of reference. Neuropsychologia, 2006, 44, 1222-1229.