Conscious information processing is distinguished by its phenomenal aspect (PAC), the what-it-is-like for an agent to experience something, which provides a sense of self and informs how the self is affected by the agent's own operations. The PAC originates from attention detecting the state of the self (S), a hierarchy of innate and acquired values expressed via the nervous system that maps the agent's body, cognitive capacities, and environmental interactions. This detection modulates the energy level of the organ of attention (OA), its neural substrate, generating the PAC. The PAC has five dimensions—qualitative, quantitative, hedonic, temporal, and spatial—each traceable to a specific feature of that modulation.
Emotions arise when an object triggers an affective response that shifts attention from the object to the sense of self, activating an area of the organ of attention (aOA) related to the self and adopting a corresponding set-point. Deviations from this set-point generate the conscious experience of emotion, informing the individual about internal equilibrium and the integrity of the sense of self. The AME theory of consciousness proposes that phenomenal consciousness results from modulation of energy levels in the aOA, manifesting through five dimensions: qualitative, quantitative, hedonic, temporal, and spatial. Emotions emerge from interactions among core affect, cognitive appraisal, and physiological-behavioral manifestations, cycling through conscious and unconscious processing. Emotions act as adaptive regulators of behavior and as operations for monitoring, defining, and reconstructing the sense of self.