A unified neurocognitive theory, the theory of attention and consciousness (TAC), bridges separate accounts of consciousness and visual attention. TAC extends the global neuronal workspace model to a visual attentional workspace (VAW) controlled by executive routers, eliminating the need for explicit saliency maps. It explains phenomena including the attentional blink, working memory consolidation, illusory conjunctions, inattentional blindness, and working memory capacity. The theory proposes multiple processing stages between early visual representation and conscious access, suggests neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness, and reconciles all-or-none with graded views of conscious representation.
Awareness of visual stimuli unfolds across multiple timescales, not just one. Using continuous flash suppression (CFS) with flicker rates of 1, 4, 10, and 25 Hz, four experiments with 48 participants showed that different flicker frequencies maximally disrupted distinct aspects of awareness: entry into awareness, attentional sampling, perceptual grouping, and exit from awareness each had a unique vulnerable flicker rate. These results suggest that temporal hierarchies in perception correspond to multiple timescales of conscious processing, challenging single-timescale theories of consciousness.