Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Thomas Parr, John Broulidakis
This commentary picks up on two related themes in Seth's article - which have roots in embodiment. The first is that perceptual inference has a metabolic cost, and it is important to consider the relationship between thermodynamic and informational energies. The second is that embodied systems actively select their data over time - which may be a core feature of biological consciousness.
Physics of Life Reviews
March 1, 2026
Christopher J. Whyte, Andrew W. Corcoran, Jonathan Robinson et al.
5 citations
The multifaceted nature of subjective experience poses a challenge to the study of consciousness. Traditional neuroscientific approaches often concentrate on isolated facets, such as perceptual awareness or the global state of consciousness and construct a theory around the relevant empirical paradigms and findings. Theories of consciousness are, therefore, often difficult to compare; indeed,...
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
July 1, 2023
Daniel Collerton, James Barnes, Nico J Diederich et al.
80 citations
Despite decades of research, we do not definitively know how people sometimes see things that are not there. Eight models of complex visual hallucinations have been published since 2000, including Deafferentation, Reality Monitoring, Perception and Attention Deficit, Activation, Input, and Modulation, Hodological, Attentional Networks, Active Inference, and Thalamocortical Dysrhythmia Default...
arXiv Preprint Archive
November 7, 2020
Zakaria Djebbara, Thomas Parr, Karl Friston
preprint
The perceptual experience of architecture is enacted by the sensory and motor system. When we act, we change the perceived environment according to a set of expectations that depend on our body and the built environment. The continuous process of collecting sensory information is thus based on bodily affordances. Affordances characterize the fit between the physical structure of the body and...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 10, 2019
Micah Allen, Andrew Levy, Thomas Parr et al.
100 citations
preprint
A growing body of evidence highlights the intricate linkage of exteroceptive perception to the rhythmic activity of the visceral body. In parallel, interoceptive inference theories of emotion and self-consciousness are on the rise in cognitive science. However, thus far no formal theory has emerged to integrate these twin domains; instead most extant work is conceptual in nature. Here, we...