Consciousness, cognition, and context: extending the global neuronal workspace model

A measurement based formula for consciousness, C, as a function of time t, is constructed. The formula depends on identifying a natural relevant self-generated, time-dependent dynamical process inherent in any entity. For human beings the relevant dynamical process identified is the ensemble of brain waves, observed in EEG measurements, that are represented in the model by their measured time dependent correlation functions. These correlation functions define the accessible d...

Neurophenomenal structuralism posits that conscious experiences are defined relationally and that their phenomenal structures are mirrored by neural structures. While this approach offers a promising framework for identifying neural correlates of contents of consciousness (NCCCs), we argue that merely establishing structural correspondences between neural and phenomenal structures is insufficient. This paper emphasizes the critical role of computational context in determining...

The science of consciousness has made great strides by focusing on the behavioral and neuronal correlates of experience. However, correlates are not enough if we are to understand even basic neurological fact; nor are they of much help in cases where we would like to know if consciousness is present: patients with a few remaining islands of functioning cortex, pre-term infants, non-mammalian species, and machines that are rapidly outperforming people at driving, recognizing f...

The purpose of this article is to provide an overall critical appraisal of Integrated Information Theory(IIT) of consciousness. We explore how it has evolved and what problems are involved in the theory. IIT is a hypothesis that consciousness can be explained in terms of integrated information. It argues that a number of fundamental properties of experience can be properly analyzed and explained by physical systems' informational properties. Throughout the last decade, there ...

This work seeks to study the beneficial properties that an autonomous agent can obtain by implementing a cognitive architecture similar to the one of conscious beings. Along this document, a conscious model of autonomous agent based in a global workspace architecture is presented. We describe how this agent is viewed from different perspectives of philosophy of mind, being inspired by their ideas. The goal of this model is to create autonomous agents able to navigate within a...

Scientific studies have shown that non-conscious stimuli and representations influence information processing during conscious experience. In the light of such evidence, questions about potential functional links between non-conscious brain representations and conscious experience arise. This article discusses a neural coding model capable of explaining how statistical learning mechanisms in dedicated resonant circuits could generate specific temporal activity traces of non-c...

This is a model of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness, what it feels like, is answered. The work builds on medical research analyzing the source and mechanisms associated with our feelings. It goes further by describing a generic model with wide applicability. The model is fully consistent with medical pathways in humans, but easily extends to animals and AI. The essence of the model is the interplay between associative memory and physiology. The model is a clea...

Conscious awareness refers to the association of information processing in the brain that is accompanied by subjective, reportable experiences. Current models of conscious access propose that sufficiently strong sensory stimuli ignite a global network of regions allowing further processing. The immense number of possible experiences indicates that brain activity associated with conscious awareness must be highly differentiated. However, information must also be integrated to ...

Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argues for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, high...

This paper exploits the fact that the variability in the inter-spike intervals, in the spike train issuing from a neuron, carries substantial information regarding the input to the neuron. A framework for neuronal information processing is proposed which utilizes the above fact to distinguish phenomenal from non-phenomenal mental representation. In the process, an explanation is offered as to what it is, in the nature of conscious mental states, that imparts them a subjective...