Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
May 5, 2014
Antonino Raffone, Narayanan Srinivasan, Cees Van Leeuwen
85 citations
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.
Zygon
December 3, 2025
Antonino Raffone, Angela Tagini, Narayanan Srinivasan
36 citations
Mindfulness is the mental ability to focus on the present moment with nonjudgmental awareness, cultivated through meditation practices originating in eastern spiritual traditions. This article examines the relationships among mindfulness, meditation, and the cognitive neuroscience of attention and awareness. Mindful awareness is linked to distributed attention, phenomenal consciousness, and momentary self-awareness, supported by cognitive psychology and neuroscience findings. An integrated neurocognitive model is proposed, highlighting the key role of the prefrontal cortex in these processes.
Front Psychol
August 7, 2020
Narayanan Srinivasan
35 citations
Some Eastern traditions claim that a state of consciousness without any mental content is possible through meditation, but this challenges Western theories that view intentionality—being about something—as essential to consciousness. The ascending reticular arousal system (ARAS) model attempts to explain such minimal phenomenal experience by proposing a special type of non-conceptual content. Examining related states like dreamless sleep may clarify whether contentless consciousness exists. A continuous state without content might also explain the felt continuity of conscious experience. The paper argues for the necessity of postulating consciousness without content and discusses its implications for current theories of consciousness.
Front Psychol
April 13, 2021
Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan, Narayanan Srinivasan, Joseph Glicksohn et al.
8 citations
This editorial introduces a collection of research exploring the neurophysiology of silence from multiple perspectives, including neuroscience, psychology, education, and contemplative traditions. It argues that silence is not merely the absence of sound but an active state that can influence brain function, cognitive processes, and well-being. The editorial highlights how silence may promote mental clarity, stress reduction, and restorative states, with potential applications in learning and education. It sets the stage for examining how silence affects brain activity, cognitive benefits, and psychological health, suggesting that understanding these mechanisms could inform practices for enhancing mental clarity and knowledge acquisition.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2025
Ishan Singhal, Narayanan Srinivasan
3 citations
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.