Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2013
Melanie Boly, Anil K. Seth, Melanie Wilke et al.
295 citations
Consciousness research over the last decade has advanced through evidence that fronto-parietal connectivity and top-down processes enable information to travel across distant cortical areas, and through numerous dissociations between consciousness and cognitive functions such as attention in humans. Mental imagery paradigms now allow identification of covert awareness in non-responsive subjects. In non-human animals, technological enhancements have clarified the roles of cortical areas and higher-order thalamus for consciousness, and progress has been made in understanding non-vertebrate cognition relevant to possible conscious states. Major advances have also occurred in theories of consciousness and their comparison with available evidence.
Front Psychol
November 10, 2015
Zoran Josipovic, Bernard J. Baars
27 citations
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Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Robert Kozma, Bernard J. Baars, Natalie Geld
EEG recordings in humans and other mammals show beta/gamma oscillations (20-80 Hz) that self-organize into spatio-temporal structures recurring at theta/alpha rates (4-12 Hz), correlating with sensory stimuli and reinforcement contingencies. These structures repeatedly collapse, generating laterally propagating phase gradients (phase cones) that may be neural signatures of transient perceptual experiences. According to neuropercolation theory, waking brains operate as non-equilibrium thermodynamic systems at the edge of criticality, undergoing repeated phase transitions. Long-range axonal connections and metabolic processes regulate this critical dynamics. This cortical operating style may optimize a tradeoff between rapid adaptation and stable self-organization, offering Darwinian benefits.
Cognitive Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Bernard J. Baars
A great deal of evidence now bears on the understanding of consciousness, but the multiplicity of theories suggests a lack of stringent criteria specifying how empirical data constrains theories of consciousness.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2013
Bernard J. Baars, Stan Franklin, Thomas Zoega Ramsoy
A global workspace (GW) is a functional hub for binding and propagating signals among loosely coupled signaling elements, and in the brain it may underlie conscious experiences. The cortico-thalamic core is thought to support conscious perception, thinking, learning, feelings of knowing, emotions, visual imagery, working memory, and executive control. Conscious contents are unitary and consistent at any moment but form a large, open set over time, suggesting the GW capacity is not localized to a single anatomical hub but is a dynamic functional capacity—a kind of neuronal cloud computing. Conscious contents may arise when multiple input streams settle on a winner-take-all equilibrium, igniting an any-to-many broadcast lasting about 100–200 ms. Conscious moments hold only 1–4 unrelated items, a small focal capacity that may be the biological price for global access.
Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
January 15, 2006
Bernard J. Baars
Consciousness is operationally defined as everything people report experiencing, including perception, mental images, inner speech, memories, semantics, dreams, hallucinations, emotional feelings, and aspects of cognitive and motor control. In cognitive theory, consciousness functions as a global access mechanism that presents a continuous stream of focal contents to executive control and decision-making processes.
Cognition
December 1, 2005
Murray Shanahan, Bernard J. Baars
The frame problem challenges cognitive science to explain how the brain can efficiently access relevant information from any domain without explicitly sorting through everything irrelevant. This paper argues that a global workspace architecture, which coordinates many parallel processes through a single serial thread of computation, offers a solution. Analogical reasoning is highlighted as a particularly demanding case of this unencapsulated information processing. Since global workspace theory also distinguishes conscious from unconscious processing, the author tentatively suggests that consciousness may be linked to how the biological brain solves the frame problem.
Progress in Brain Research
January 1, 2005
Bernard J. Baars
Global workspace theory proposes that conscious cognition involves widespread brain activity, especially in frontoparietal and medial temporal regions, while unconscious processing is limited to local areas. The theory emerged from cognitive architecture research and generates predictions for conscious aspects of perception, emotion, learning, and voluntary control. Brain imaging studies show that conscious tasks produce broad cortical activation, whereas unconscious conditions activate only local regions such as visual projection areas. Frontoparietal hypometabolism is also observed in unconscious states including deep sleep, coma, vegetative states, epileptic loss of consciousness, and general anesthesia. These findings support the global workspace hypothesis, which is endorsed by many scientists and philosophers.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
April 1, 2003
Bernard J. Baars, Stan Franklin
The active components of classical working memory are conscious, a fact that traditional theory does not account for. Global Workspace theory proposes that consciousness recruits unconscious specialized networks to perform detailed working memory functions. The IDA model offers a detailed analysis of this process, focusing on two classical working-memory tasks: verbal rehearsal and the use of a visual image. This analysis clarifies the interactions between conscious and unconscious aspects of working memory.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
January 1, 2002
Bernard J. Baars
Consciousness may serve to mobilize and integrate otherwise separate brain functions, a hypothesis known as the 'conscious access hypothesis' first described in global workspace theory nearly two decades ago. The theory initially had little impact because consciousness was controversial, the evidence was indirect, and integrative theory was unfashionable. Recent neuroimaging evidence broadly supports the hypothesis, which has implications for perception, learning, working memory, voluntary control, attention, and self systems in the brain.
Neural networks : the official journal of the International Neural Network Society
October 1, 1997
Sung Bae Cho, Bernard J. Baars, James Newman
A neurocognitive model of consciousness is presented, defining it as a global integration and dissemination system nested within a distributed array of specialized bioprocessors. This system controls the allocation of central nervous system processing resources via cortical gating of a strategic thalamic nucleus. The model integrates experimental data from cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, building on developments of Baars' Global Workspace theory. The basic circuitry of this neural system is reasonably well understood and can be approximated using neural network principles.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 1, 1995
Bernard J. Baars
The abstract argues that questions about consciousness—such as whether it is a single phenomenon or a collection of loosely related problems, and whether personal conscious experience is tightly linked to global cognitive access—cannot be settled by theoretical reasoning alone; they require empirical investigation. The author illustrates this by pointing to readers' own introspective experiences, such as the difference between central and peripheral vision, and the contrast between conscious and unconscious processing of a word's multiple meanings.