Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
January 1, 2025
Andrew W. Corcoran, Kelsey Perrykkad, Daniel Feuerriegel et al.
19 citations
Predictive processing theories, especially active inference, have been proposed as a way to reconcile embodied and traditional cognitive science. This analysis argues that most active-inference accounts rely on weak or trivial conceptions of embodiment, while stronger claims do not follow from the framework itself. A more compelling version of embodied active inference is motivated by taking a diachronic view of how rhythmic physiological activity shapes neural development before birth. The visceral afferent training hypothesis proposes that early-emerging physiological processes, particularly from the cardiovascular system, are essential for configuring cognitive architecture. Three candidate mechanisms are suggested: activity-dependent neuronal development, periodic signal modeling, and oscillatory network coordination.
Translational Psychiatry
September 30, 2024
Elizabeth L. Fisher, Ryan Smith, Kyna Conn et al.
14 citations
Psilocybin treatment in rats performing a reversal learning task led to more rewards through increased task engagement, driven by changes in forgetting rates and reduced loss aversion. Computational modeling suggests psilocybin may induce an optimism bias by altering how beliefs are updated, which could have implications for clinical conditions marked by pessimism.
Physics of Life Reviews
March 1, 2026
Christopher J. Whyte, Andrew W. Corcoran, Jonathan Robinson et al.
5 citations
Subjective experience is multifaceted, making it hard for traditional neuroscientific theories of consciousness to be compared because each focuses on different aspects like perceptual awareness or global states. This work instead starts from active inference, a first-principles framework that models behavior as approximate Bayesian inference, and builds a minimal theory of consciousness from shared features of computational models derived under active inference. By reviewing studies that apply active inference models to consciousness, the authors identify a small set of theoretical commitments implicit in these models, pointing toward a minimal and testable theory of consciousness.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
December 30, 2025
Esteban Munoz-Musat, Arthur Le Coz, Andrew W. Corcoran et al.
5 citations
Mind blanking—a state of apparent mental emptiness—produces distinct brain signatures that separate it from mind wandering and focused attention. In 62 participants performing a sustained attention task, mind blanking was associated with behavioral lapses, reduced fast brain oscillations and complexity over posterior electrodes, and decreased long-range connectivity compared to both mind wandering and on-task states. Event-related potentials showed disrupted visual processing beginning 200 milliseconds after a stimulus, suggesting a breakdown in conscious access to sensory information. Brain activity patterns predicted mental states on individual trials, revealing dynamics that subjective reports alone miss. These findings indicate that being awake does not guarantee consciousness of something; mind blanking reflects genuine gaps in the stream of thought, arising from disruptions in generating or accessing thought content.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
July 2, 2025
Neil W. Bailey, Aron T. Hill, Kate Godfrey et al.
4 citations
Mindfulness meditation, which trains attention on sensory experiences with nonjudgmental awareness, is thought to sharpen sensory processing and reduce top-down expectations. This study measured forward and backward traveling cortical alpha waves—proposed to reflect bottom-up inhibition and top-down inhibition, respectively—using electroencephalography in meditators and nonmeditators. During eyes-closed resting (97 participants) and a visual Go/No-go task (126 participants), meditators showed stronger forward traveling waves than nonmeditators in both conditions, and weaker backward traveling waves during rest. These neural differences may underlie enhanced attention and reduced mind-wandering associated with meditation, supporting models where mental training increases sensory awareness.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
May 17, 2024
Elizabeth L. Fisher, Ryan Smith, Andrew W. Corcoran et al.
2 citations
preprint
Rats treated with psilocybin achieved more rewards in a decision-making task, driven by increased task engagement, altered forgetting rates, and reduced loss aversion. Computational modeling of the rats' behavior revealed that psilocybin may induce an optimism bias through changes in how beliefs are updated. This finding has potential relevance for clinical populations characterized by a lack of optimism, such as those with depression.
PLoS One
December 4, 2025
Jonathan Robinson, Andrew W. Corcoran, Christopher J. Whyte et al.
1 citation
Active inference, a framework for modeling how sentient agents behave, is being tested as necessary for changes in conscious content. In an adversarial collaboration, active inference will be contrasted with two other theories that do not require it for consciousness. This study protocol describes an adaptation of the motion-induced blindness paradigm: an active condition where participants direct their gaze toward a target after it disappears from consciousness and report its reappearance, versus a passive condition where participants fixate centrally while the stimulus array moves in a replay of active eye-tracking data. Two experiments will compare target reappearance across conditions to evaluate active inference's contribution to conscious awareness.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
August 1, 2026
Andrew W. Corcoran, Andrew M. Haun, Reinder Dorman et al.
Three theories of consciousness—Integrated Information Theory, Neurorepresentationalism, and Active Inference—are compared and contrasted in a structured adversarial collaboration. The review presents each theory's core claims, the phenomena they explain, their explanatory approaches, and methodological strategies. It outlines key hypotheses to be tested across multi-site experiments, discusses observations that would support or challenge each theory, and describes how data from disparate experiments can be formally integrated to quantify evidential support. The work also provides meta-scientific insights into the mechanics of adversarial collaboration and theory-testing, including how theories may be evaluated by the scientific progress they deliver.
Mindfulness
July 3, 2026
Aron T. Hill, Sung Wook Chung, Melanie Emonson et al.
Experienced meditators show distinct patterns of brain activity during attention tasks compared to non-meditators. Using EEG to measure event-related potentials, the study found that meditators had stronger N2 brain responses in fronto-midline areas during a difficult task requiring conflict monitoring. The P3 brain response, associated with attention, was distributed more frontally in meditators during an easy task, while non-meditators showed this pattern during the hard task. These differences suggest meditation experience is linked to altered attentional processing rather than specific conflict monitoring or stimulus expectancy processes.
September 30, 2025
Toby J. Woods, Andrew W. Corcoran, Olivia Carter et al.
preprint
A 15-minute session of Stillness Meditation, which involves skillfully doing nothing, is calming, pleasant, and easy for meditation-naive adults, not aversive as earlier research suggested. In a randomized trial with 165 participants, those practicing Stillness Meditation reported the session as calm, pleasant, and easy, and showed increases in heart rate variability and interbeat interval from baseline. While focused attention led to higher self-reported calm than Stillness Meditation or an audiobook, there were no differences in easiness, pleasantness, or cardiac measures between groups. The findings validate Stillness Meditation as a tool for studying pure consciousness.
arXiv Preprint Archive
August 30, 2025
Andrew W. Corcoran, Andrew M. Haun, Reinder Dorman et al.
Three major theories of consciousness—Integrated Information Theory, Neurorepresentationalism, and Active Inference—are compared and contrasted in the context of a structured adversarial collaboration designed to test their competing predictions. The review presents each theory's core claims, the phenomena they explain, their explanatory styles, and methodological strategies. It outlines key hypotheses to be tested across multi-site experiments, discusses observations that would support or challenge each theory, and describes how data from disparate experiments can be formally integrated to provide a quantitative measure of evidential support. The work also offers meta-scientific insights into adversarial collaboration and theory-testing.
arXiv Preprint Archive
October 9, 2024
Christopher J. Whyte, Andrew W. Corcoran, Jonathan Robinson et al.
Subjective experience is multifaceted, making consciousness hard to study because traditional theories often focus on isolated aspects like perception or wakefulness and are difficult to compare. This work starts from active inference—a first-principles framework that models behavior as approximate Bayesian inference—and builds toward a minimal theory of consciousness derived from shared features of computational models under active inference. Reviewing models applied to consciousness, the authors argue that these models imply a small set of theoretical commitments pointing to a minimal, testable theory of consciousness.