A Cognitive Theory of ConsciousnessConscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems. |
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Page xi
... hierarchy 58 2.1 Trade - offs to maintain consistency in the Ames distorted room 2.2 Conscious experiences are always internally consistent 2.3 Model 1 : A global workspace in a distributed system 2.4 Some time parameters of conscious ...
... hierarchy 58 2.1 Trade - offs to maintain consistency in the Ames distorted room 2.2 Conscious experiences are always internally consistent 2.3 Model 1 : A global workspace in a distributed system 2.4 Some time parameters of conscious ...
Page xii
... Hierarchy 5.1 The Dalmatian in the Park : Conscious experiences can help create context 5.2 Conscious events help to create new contexts and to evoke old ones 5.3 Adaptation versus the search for new information 5.4 Consciousness ...
... Hierarchy 5.1 The Dalmatian in the Park : Conscious experiences can help create context 5.2 Conscious events help to create new contexts and to evoke old ones 5.3 Adaptation versus the search for new information 5.4 Consciousness ...
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Contents
What is to be explained? Some preliminaries | 3 |
11 Some history and a look ahead | 4 |
12 What is to be explained? A first definition of the topic | 13 |
13 Some attempts to understand conscious experience | 28 |
A gathering consensus | 43 |
15 Some common themes in this book | 64 |
16 Chapter summary and a look ahead | 70 |
The basic model | 71 |
65 Further implications | 243 |
66 Chapter summary | 245 |
Model 5 Volition as ideomotor control of thought and action | 246 |
71 Is there a problem of volition? Some contrasts between similar voluntary and involuntary actions | 248 |
72 Voluntary action resembles spontaneous problem solving | 257 |
The ideomotor theory in modern garb | 259 |
74 Evidence bearing on the ideomotor theory | 267 |
75 Explaining the voluntaryinvoluntary contrasts | 273 |
Model 1 Conscious representations are internally consistent and globally distributed | 73 |
21 Contrasting the capabilities of conscious and unconscious processes | 74 |
A global workspace blackboard in a distributed system of intelligent information processors | 86 |
23 How the theoretical metaphor fits the evidence of Table 21 | 89 |
24 Input properties of the global workspace | 96 |
How global is global? | 99 |
26 Further considerations | 104 |
27 Testable predictions and counterarguments | 108 |
28 Chapter summary | 117 |
The neural basis of conscious experience | 119 |
31 The neurophysiological fit with Model 1 | 121 |
32 Extensions suggested by the neurophysiology | 128 |
33 Recent refinements of the neurophysiological evidence | 131 |
34 Chapter summary | 134 |
The fundamental role of context | 135 |
Model 2 Unconscious contexts shape conscious experience | 137 |
41 Sources of evidence on contexts | 139 |
42 Several kinds of contexts | 151 |
43 Modeling contextual knowledge | 161 |
44 Some plausible properties of contexts | 166 |
45 Implications for empirical testing | 173 |
46 Chapter summary | 176 |
Model 3 Conscious experience is informative it always demands some degree of adaptation | 177 |
Any learnable task goes from contextcreation to conscious information to redundancy | 184 |
52 Human beings also seek information at many levels | 199 |
Interpreting informativeness in the theory | 203 |
Is informativeness a necessary condition for conscious experience? | 208 |
55 Implications for learning | 213 |
56 Some experimental predictions | 219 |
57 Other implications | 220 |
58 Chapter summary | 221 |
Goals and voluntary control | 223 |
Model 4 Goal contexts spontaneous problem solving and the stream of consciousness | 225 |
61 The tipofthetongue state as a goal context or intention | 226 |
62 The consciousunconsciousconscious CUC triad | 233 |
63 Empirical assessment of goal contexts | 239 |
64 Goal contexts and the stream of consciousness | 240 |
76 Wider implications | 279 |
77 Absorption and hypnosis as ideomotor events | 287 |
78 Conflicts between goals | 292 |
79 Chapter summary | 296 |
Attention self and conscious selfmonitoring | 299 |
Model 6 Attention as control of access to consciousness | 301 |
81 Voluntary and automatic control of access to consciousness | 305 |
82 Modeling voluntary and automatic access control | 307 |
83 Directing attention toward something | 314 |
Suppression repression and emotional conflict | 317 |
85 Further implications | 321 |
86 Chapter summary | 324 |
Model 7 Self as the dominant context of experience and action | 325 |
91 Contrasting self and notself experiences | 331 |
92 Modeling self and selfconcept | 336 |
93 Further questions to explore | 341 |
94 Chapter summary | 344 |
Consciousness is functional | 345 |
The functions of consciousness | 347 |
101 Definitional and Contextsetting Function | 350 |
102 Adaptation and Learning Function | 351 |
104 Recruiting and Control Function | 352 |
106 Decisionmaking or Executive Function | 353 |
108 Metacognitive or Selfmonitoring Function | 354 |
109 Autoprogramming and Selfmaintenance Function | 355 |
1010 Chapter summary | 356 |
Conclusion | 357 |
A summary and some future directions | 359 |
112 A brief review of the models | 360 |
113 What are the necessary conditions for conscious experience? | 362 |
114 Some practical implications of GW theory | 364 |
The mindbody problem revisited | 365 |
Glossary and guide to theoretical claims | 367 |
393 | |
411 | |
416 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract access to consciousness activation adaptation ambiguity Baars become conscious biofeedback brain Chapter classical conditioning cognitive compete components concepts conscious access conscious and unconscious conscious contents conscious events conscious experience conscious goal conscious goal-images constrain contrastive analysis cooperate cortex Dominant Context Hierarchy editing errors evidence evoke example execution fact feedback Figure global broadcasting global message Global Workspace theory goal contexts GW theory habituation hypnosis Hypothesis idea ideomotor theory imagery inner speech input intentions interpretation involuntary involves learning levels limited capacity mental images metacognitive Necker cube nervous system neurons nonqualitative normal novel one's Options Context perceptual phenomena predictable presumably processes psychology qualitative recruit Redundancy Effects representation reticular formation retrieve scious seems self-alien self-concept self-system semantic semantic satiation sense sensory sentence Short Term Memory slips specialized processors stimulus subgoals suggests task tend thalamus theoretical thought tip-of-the-tongue trigger uncon unconscious processors violated visual voluntary action voluntary control word