Tag Archives: Neuroscience

The response schema

Posted on March 4, 2020 by

Several months ago Michael Graziano, and colleagues, attempted a synthesis of three families of scientific theories of consciousness: global workspace theory (GWT), higher order theory (HOT), and his own attention schema theory (AST). A quick (crudely simplistic) reminder: GWT posits … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 42 Comments

Islands of awareness

Posted on February 20, 2020 by

(Warning: neuroscience weeds) An interesting paper by Tim Bayne, Anil Seth, and Marcello Massimi, which came up in my Twitter stream today, asks whether there can be islands of awareness. Ordinary consciousness involves ongoing interaction with the environment, receiving sensory … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Stimulating the central lateral thalamus produces consciousness

Posted on February 14, 2020 by

(Warning: neuroscience weeds) A couple of people have asked me about this study, described in numerous popular science articles (such as this one).  A monkey had electrodes installed in its brain that allowed scientists to stimulate parts of its thalamus, … Continue reading →

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Prefrontal activity associated with the contents of consciousness

Posted on January 29, 2020 by

The other day I bemoaned the fact that the Templeton competition between global workspace theory (GWT) and integrated information theory (IIT) would take so long, particularly the point about having to wait to see the role of the front and … Continue reading →

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Recurrent processing theory and the function of consciousness

Posted on January 25, 2020 by

Victor Lamme’s recurrent processing theory (RPT) remains on the short list of theories considered plausible by the consciousness science community.  It’s something of a dark horse candidate, without the support of global workspace theory (GWT) or integrated information theory (IIT), … Continue reading →

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Stephen Macknik’s work on prosthetic vision

Posted on January 24, 2020 by

This is pretty wild.  In her latest Brain Science podcast, Ginger Campbell interviews Stephen Macknik on his work to develop a visual replacement implant for blind people.  For a quick overview, check out this short video. One question Campbell asks, … Continue reading →

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Is there a conscious perception finish line?

Posted on January 19, 2020 by

Global workspace theory (GWT) is the proposition that consciousness is composed of contents broadcast throughout the brain.  Various specialty processes compete for the limited capacity of the broadcasting mechanisms, to have their content broadcast to the all the other specialty … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 54 Comments

The battle between integration and workspace will take a while

Posted on January 11, 2020 by

Well, I find this a bit disappointing.  I was hoping that the contest between global workspace theory (GWT) and integrated information theory (IIT) would be announced sometime this year.  Apparently, I’m going to have to wait awhile: Pitts describes the … Continue reading →

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The issues with higher order theories of consciousness

Posted on January 2, 2020 by

After the global workspace theory (GWT) post, someone asked me if I’m now down on higher order theories (HOT).  It’s fair to say I’m less enthusiastic about them than I used to be.  They still might describe important components of … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 58 Comments

Global workspace theory: consciousness as brain wide information sharing

Posted on December 29, 2019 by

Lately I’ve been reading up on global workspace theory (GWT).  In a survey published last year, among general consciousness enthusiasts, integrated information theory (IIT) was the most popular theory, followed closely by GWT.  However, among active consciousness researchers, GWT was … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 55 Comments