Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Lionel Naccache
138 citations
A popular philosophical distinction holds that conscious experience is far richer than what we can report, calling the reportable part 'access consciousness' and the remainder 'phenomenal consciousness'. This article reviews five major problems with that view and argues that a strict access-consciousness theory, framed within the global workspace model, can account for all conscious experience. Subjective reports are not passive broadcasts but result from dynamic internal processes including interpretation and belief attribution. The article offers testable predictions and counterintuitive hypotheses, suggesting that phenomenal consciousness beyond access may be unnecessary.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Michael A Pitts, Lydia A Lutsyshyna, Steven A Hillyard
135 citations
A review of tensions between global neuronal workspace theory and recurrent processing theory focuses on their differing views on the relationship between attention and consciousness. The authors argue that both theories offer key insights that can be reconciled into a novel framework. They propose an updated taxonomy of conscious and non-conscious states that incorporates a wider spectrum by integrating contemporary views on attentional mechanisms interacting with sensory processing. The framework considers whether certain types of attention are necessary for phenomenal and access consciousness. Recent 'no-report' paradigms are reviewed, and methodological misunderstandings are addressed to clarify how to identify the neural basis of perceptual awareness.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Ian Phillips
116 citations
The relationship between phenomenal consciousness and cognitive access remains a fundamental but empirically elusive issue. Despite numerous attempts using partial-report, metacognitive, and no-report paradigms, as well as proposals to treat phenomenal consciousness as a natural kind, the methodological puzzle persists. The paper argues that none of these approaches have resolved the core difficulty, and that researchers must adopt an attitude of humility toward the study of phenomenal consciousness for now.
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.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
February 13, 2023
Dimitris Bolis, Guillaume Dumas, Leonhard Schilbach
71 citations
Social interactions rely on interpersonal attunement, a multi-scale process of building and materializing social expectations. While common ground is cultivated through communication and culture, the mechanisms involved have often been studied in isolation. Collective psychophysiology can analyze social interactions without neglecting the individual. Mismatched expectations can break communication and lead to social isolation, negatively affecting mental health. Psychiatric disorders can be understood as disorders of social interaction, or interpersonal misattunement. This suggests an inter-personalized psychiatry that moves from a static disorder spectrum to a dynamic relational space, focusing on how social interaction promotes mental health.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Morten Overgaard
62 citations
In consciousness research, phenomenal consciousness (subjective experience) is often distinguished from access consciousness (cognitive availability). Some scientists, notably Ned Block, argue that phenomenal content can exceed what is cognitively accessed—a claim known as 'overflow'. This review examines the evidence and concludes that existing data do not demonstrate overflow. Overflow is theoretically possible but extremely difficult to prove if 'cognitive access' is defined as working memory or attention. However, if 'access' means information becoming 'cognitively available' in a broader sense, then a separation between subjective experience and access is impossible.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
February 1, 2021
Jarrod Gott, Leonore Bovy, Emma Peters et al.
33 citations
Lucid dreaming—being aware that one is dreaming while still asleep—is rare but can be trained by regularly questioning whether current experience is real or a dream. Virtual reality (VR) scenarios containing dream-like elements enhanced this training. Over four weeks, volunteers who received VR-assisted lucid dreaming training showed significantly greater increases in lucid dreaming than those who received no training. Eye-signal-verified lucid dreams during polysomnography supported these behavioral results. Potential mechanisms include synthetic dream-like experiences, incorporation of VR content into dream imagery as memory cues, and dissociative effects of VR that may amplify lucid dreaming training during wakefulness.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Peter Fazekas, Morten Overgaard
30 citations
The problem of explaining how subjective experiences like colors, sounds, and tastes arise from brain processes is often considered the greatest unsolved mystery. A key question is whether the neural basis of perceptual consciousness is separate from the neural basis of cognitive access mechanisms that allow reporting and reflecting on conscious experiences. This Theme Issue critically discusses current empirical findings, identifies methodological problems, and proposes novel approaches to this central issue in consciousness research.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Emily J Ward
20 citations
Although moment-to-moment experience of the world feels vivid and rich, visual awareness is actually quite sparse, as shown by phenomena like change blindness and inattentional blindness. When failures of memory or comparison are ruled out, these phenomena provide strong evidence against the idea of rich visual awareness. To account for such massive failures, any theory of phenomenal consciousness must downgrade phenomenology to a point where it is functionless or does not reflect what we actually experience.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
September 19, 2018
Jesper Mogensen, Morten Overgaard
17 citations
Phenomenal consciousness cannot overflow the availability of information for action, but it may overflow working memory, which is seen as a surface phenomenon reflecting underlying dynamic strategies. This conclusion comes from the REF (reorganization of elementary functions) framework, a neurocognitive model based on connectionist networks where advanced processing modules called elementary functions reorganize connectivity to form dynamic strategies rather than fixed cognitive functions. The neural correlate of consciousness is understood within these models as tied to such reorganizations, and working memory is influenced by both experience and situational factors.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
November 4, 2024
Felipe De Brigard
12 citations
Since Tulving's 1985 article, autonoetic consciousness has been considered necessary for episodic memory. This paper challenges that claim, arguing that the construct of autonoetic consciousness lacks validity and, even if valid, would not be necessary for episodic memory. It proposes returning to a functional or computational characterization of episodic memory, where its characteristic phenomenology is a contingent feature of retrieval and open to empirical study. This approach aligns with memory taxonomies independent of conscious awareness and suggests ways to evaluate variability in conscious experience of episodic memories across humans and non-human agents.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
January 29, 2024
Claudia Muth, Claus-Christian Carbon
11 citations
Predictive Processing (PP) theory suggests that perception works to make sensations predictable by updating predictions or seeking new experiences. This paper argues that art perception differs from problem-solving because people engage with contradictory elements without aiming to resolve them. The authors propose that experiences of 'Semantic Instability' (SeIns)—where perception is challenged by multiple possible meanings—can themselves generate aesthetic pleasure and interest. They update an earlier account of SeIns by adopting an embodied and situated view of perception and cognition, and discuss how embodied versions of PP might explain why such unstable but insightful sense-making processes are motivating and enjoyable.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
December 9, 2019
David J Schwartzman, Daniel Bor, Nicolas Rothen et al.
7 citations
Synaesthesia, where specific stimuli automatically trigger additional perceptual experiences, offers insight into conscious perception. While traditionally considered congenital, growing evidence shows that synaesthesia-like experiences can be induced in non-synaesthetes, even in adulthood. This review examines various methods for artificially inducing such experiences and compares them to natural synaesthesia's hallmarks: consistency, automaticity, and lack of 'perceptual presence'. The authors conclude that many aspects of synaesthesia can be induced, suggesting developmental and learning components in its acquisition and extending evidence of perceptual plasticity in adults.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
November 13, 2025
Colin Klein, Andrew B Barron
6 citations
Phenomenal consciousness arises in mobile animals with spatial senses and goal-directed behavior as a solution to the problem of selecting among competing actions. To choose between goals, the brain must combine sensory inputs, internal states, and learned values into a common framework—a phenomenal interface—that computes multi-objective Q-values. Using insects as a model, the authors argue this processing naturally creates a distinction between self and non-self and a first-person perspective where external stimuli carry subjective value. The theory has implications for understanding the evolution and distribution of consciousness and highlights a problem for how consciousness might have expanded from its simplest origins.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
January 29, 2024
Karin Kukkonen
6 citations
Predictive processing describes the brain as an engine of probabilistic hierarchical inference. This article extends that framework to consciousness by drawing on literary engagement, showing how literature can illuminate qualia, counterfactual depth in conscious experience, and sense of self. The author proposes that literature functions as a designer environment for exploring and rethinking consciousness, not merely a source of illustrative examples, and suggests theoretical questions for experimental designs using literature as a source of hypotheses.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
November 13, 2025
Léa Moncoucy, Krzysztof Dołęga, Catherine Tallon-Baudry et al.
5 citations
Phenomenal experience—what it feels like to be an organism—has intrinsic value that cannot be reduced to evolutionary cost-benefit calculations. While all organisms act for reasons shaped by extrinsic evolutionary pressures, some also act for reasons of their own, sometimes even in ways detrimental to their survival. This shift marks a fundamental change in nature: subjective experience broadens an organism's capacity to act not merely in response to objective evolutionary value but also according to preference-driven subjective value associated with items, situations, events, or other agents. Subjective value can serve both as a driver of behavior and as a target for behavior, making it irreducible to extrinsic forms of value.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
November 13, 2025
Irina Mikhalevich
2 citations
Evolutionary explanations of consciousness face three interconnected challenges: lingering misconceptions from evolutionary progressivism and adaptationism; the measurement problem of gathering comparative data on consciousness without an agreed-upon theory or meta-strategies; and unresolved questions about how to individuate traits for functional analysis. These challenges are illustrated through adaptive accounts that identify valence (the goodness or badness of psychological states), rather than phenomenal consciousness (the subjective experience of 'what it is like'), as the fitness-conferring trait. On such accounts, phenomenal consciousness is adaptive only if it and valence are part of the same trait; otherwise, it appears to be a byproduct of selection for valence. Whether they are part of the same trait depends on how traits are individuated and the relationship between valence and phenomenal consciousness.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
November 13, 2025
Antonella Tramacere
1 citation
Subjective time distortions—such as time slowing down in threatening situations or compressing during familiar tasks—are not malfunctions but adaptive features that enhance agency. Perceived duration often aligns with what is useful for the organism, improving temporal control, learning, and prediction. These illusions demonstrate the system's ability to construct a subjectively meaningful reality that boosts action potential. Analyzing temporal experiences across species can reveal whether nonhuman animals also experience time's structure as necessary for predicting and responding to interactions between self and world.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
November 13, 2025
Nicholas Humphrey
1 citation
Phenomenal consciousness—the felt, subjective quality of sensory experience that underlies sentience—likely emerged late in evolution, after non-phenomenal conscious access to a global mental workspace had already become widespread for cognitive processing. The article proposes a step-by-step neural sequence through which sensory representations could have acquired phenomenal content via small brain changes. It argues that a phenomenally conscious self provides crucial psychological benefits to animals. Blindsight, where patients respond to visual stimuli without conscious awareness, is presented as a model for the non-phenomenal cognition that characterizes most insentient species.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
July 29, 2024
Yihao Jiang, Yiyan Dong, Hailan Hu
Ketamine, an NMDAR antagonist, has superior antidepressant efficacy compared to traditional monoamine-targeting drugs, acting faster and more potently. While substantial evidence supports an NMDAR-antagonism-based hypothesis for its mechanisms, controversial results from other NMDAR inhibitors have led to alternative arguments. This article reviews the historical development of the NMDAR-centered hypothesis, classifies NMDAR inhibitors by their mechanisms, and evaluates preclinical and clinical evidence of their antidepressant effects. It critically analyzes debates over ketamine's NMDAR-dependent and independent actions, aiming to clarify molecular targets to guide future depression treatments.