Additional Resources for Sparse Theories of Phenomenal Consciousness
Journal of Consciousness Studies November 20, 2021 Christopher F. Masciari
In the debate about whether phenomenal consciousness is rich or sparse, the rich view holds that conscious experience contains more information than can be accessed or held in working memory, while the sparse view denies this. Some sparse-view proponents argue that the subjective feeling of richness arises from scene statistics and a cognitive illusion. This paper argues that the sparse view has further, underappreciated resources to explain intuitions of richness, drawing on research on feature binding and activity-silent working memory.