A Dynamic Affective Core to bind the Contents, Context, and Value of Conscious Experience
bioRxiv May 21, 2021 K. Kishida, L. P. Sands preprint
Conscious subjective experience is private and dynamic, posing a challenge that neuroscience often sidesteps by focusing on information processing and behavior rather than the 'hard problem' of how neural activity produces phenomenal experience. Computational methods combined with brain-measurement tools are beginning to link dynamic changes in subjective affect with reproducible neurobehavioral signals. Research applying reinforcement learning theory has revealed connections between dopaminergic signals and changes in subjective affect, though dopamine alone cannot explain all affective dynamics. The authors review foundational work, highlight open questions, and propose a Dynamic Affective Core Hypothesis integrating how conscious experiences represent content and context with how they acquire affective subjective value.