How rich is consciousness? The partial awareness hypothesis.
Trends in cognitive sciences July 1, 2010 Sid Kouider, Vincent De Gardelle, Jérôme Sackur et al. 477 citations
Current theories distinguish phenomenal consciousness (rich experience) from access consciousness (limited reportable content). The authors argue that evidence for phenomenal consciousness without access is weak, often confusing unconscious contents or illusory richness with genuine phenomenal experience. They propose a refined account where access operates across a hierarchy of representational levels, with partial awareness allowing independent access to lower and higher levels. This reframing of dissociable forms of consciousness into dissociable levels of access offers a more parsimonious explanation of existing evidence, and the illusion of rich phenomenology can be studied through testable cognitive mechanisms.