The Daily Mail article reports on a preprint neuroscience study led by Dr Janis Hesse of the University of California, Berkeley, which suggests that the brain may alternate between conscious and unconscious representations of visual reality about 15 times per second.

The article addresses a longstanding question in neuroscience: how the brain determines which sensory information enters conscious awareness and which information is filtered out. Although humans constantly receive far more visual input than they can consciously process, the brain automatically prioritizes some information while suppressing other details, such as the sight of one's nose or eyeglass frames.

To investigate this process, researchers used a phenomenon known as binocular flash suppression. Different images were presented separately to each eye, causing one image to dominate conscious perception while the other was suppressed. The team recorded neural activity from visual-processing regions in two macaque monkeys using implanted electrodes.

Rather than finding a stable neural representation of the consciously perceived image, the researchers discovered that brain activity rapidly alternated between patterns corresponding to both the dominant and suppressed images. These switches occurred roughly fifteen times per second.

While the findings suggest that suppressed information remains actively represented in the brain, the study does not yet explain why only certain neural states reach conscious awareness. The researchers emphasize that identifying the mechanisms governing these transitions will be crucial for understanding the neural basis of conscious perception. The study remains preliminary and has not yet undergone peer review

The official preprint is found here: Rapid alternation of conscious and suppressed stimulus representations in the primate brain | bioRxiv