Big-tent versus small-tent views of the brain mechanisms underlying consciousness.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews July 13, 2026 Nelson Cowan, Leonel A Gomez
We examine a seldom-discussed characteristic of scientific theories of human consciousness: the extent to which an adequate theory requires a big-tent or integrated, global neural substrate for consciousness or a more limited, small-tent or localized neural substrate. Most current theories of consciousness are big-tent, with the assumption that consciousness must integrate many different types...