Is consciousness a continuous stream of percepts or is it discrete, occurring only at certain moments in time? We favor a two-stage discrete model, in which substantial periods of continuous unconscious processing precede discrete conscious percepts

All in Good Time: Long-Lasting Postdictive Effects Reveal Discrete Perception. Michael H. Herzog, Leila Drissi-Daoudi, Adrien Doerig. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, September 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.07.001

Highlights
. Conscious perception seems to be a continuous stream of percepts. Is this true? Recent research sheds new light on this age-old debate.
. In long-lasting postdictive effects, later events can determine the perception of events that occurred several hundreds of milliseconds earlier.
. Long-lasting postdiction requires high capacity buffers, which store information unconsciously for substantial periods of time. This favors a two-stage model, in which continuous unconscious processing precedes discrete conscious percepts.
. Such a two-stage model solves the problems of both traditional continuous and discrete models.

Abstract: Is consciousness a continuous stream of percepts or is it discrete, occurring only at certain moments in time? This question has puzzled philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists for centuries. Both hypotheses have fallen repeatedly in and out of favor. Here, we review recent studies exploring long-lasting postdictive effects and show that the results favor a two-stage discrete model, in which substantial periods of continuous unconscious processing precede discrete conscious percepts. We propose that such a model marries the advantages of both continuous and discrete models and resolves centuries old debates about perception and consciousness.

Keywords: consciousnessdiscrete versus continuous perceptiontwo-stage modelspostdictionvisual processing