Cognition 79 (1):1-37 (2001)
Abstract |
This introductory chapter attempts to clarify the philosophical, empirical, and theoretical bases on which a cognitive neuroscience approach to consciousness can be founded. We isolate three major empirical observations that any theory of consciousness should incorporate, namely (1) a considerable amount of processing is possible without consciousness, (2) attention is a prerequisite of consciousness, and (3) consciousness is required for some specific cognitive tasks, including those that require durable information maintenance, novel combinations of operations, or the spontaneous generation of intentional behavior. We then propose a theoretical framework that synthesizes those facts: the hypothesis of a global neuronal workspace. This framework postulates that, at any given time, many modular
cerebral networks are active in parallel and process information in an unconscious manner. An information becomes conscious, however, if the neural population that represents it is mobilized by top-down attentional amplification into a brain-scale state of coherent activity that involves many neurons distributed throughout the brain. The long-distance connectivity of these `workspace neurons' can, when they are active for a minimal duration, make the information available to a variety of processes including perceptual categorization, long-term memorization, evaluation, and intentional action. We postulate that this global availability of information through the workspace is what we subjectively experience as a conscious state. A complete theory of consciousness should explain why some cognitive and cerebral representations can be permanently or temporarily inaccessible to consciousness, what is the range of possible conscious contents, how they map onto specific cerebral circuits, and whether a generic neuronal mechanism underlies all of them. We confront the workspace model with those issues and identify novel experimental predictions. Neurophysiological,
anatomical, and brain-imaging data strongly argue for a major role of prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and the areas that connect to them, in creating the postulated brain-scale workspace.
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Keywords | Consciousness Awareness Attention Priming |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1016/s0010-0277(00)00123-2 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.David J. Chalmers - 1996 - Oxford University Press.
On a Confusion About a Function of Consciousness.Ned Block - 1995 - Brain and Behavioral Sciences 18 (2):227-–247.
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Citations of this work BETA
Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh Between Psychology and Neuroscience.Ned Block - 2007 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (5):481--548.
Conscious, Preconscious, and Subliminal Processing: A Testable Taxonomy.Stanislas Dehaene, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Lionel Naccache, Jérôme Sackur & Claire Sergent - 2006 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10 (5):204-211.
How We Know Our Own Minds: The Relationship Between Mindreading and Metacognition.Peter Carruthers - 2009 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (2):121-138.
The Role of Consciousness in Grasping and Understanding.David Bourget - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (2):285-318.
The Conscious Access Hypothesis: Origins and Recent Evidence.Bernard J. Baars - 2002 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6 (1):47-52.
View all 386 citations / Add more citations
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