General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach.
Frontiers in Psychology January 1, 2013 Neil Mehta, George A. Mashour
A complete theory of consciousness must explain both general consciousness (what makes any state conscious) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular quality). First-order representationalism holds that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to a subject for action, belief, and planning. The authors provide a neuroscientific framework: neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while specific consciousness involves sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. They argue that recent data favor first-order representationalism over competing theories such as biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.