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Nelson Cowan

2 papers in the library · 11 citations · publishing 2025-2026

Papers

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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...

Theories of consciousness from the perspective of an embedded processes view.

Psychological review 2025 Nelson Cowan, Nick I Ahmed, Chenye Bao et al. 11 citations

Considerable recent research in neurosciences has dealt with the topic of consciousness, even though there is still disagreement about how to identify and classify conscious states. Recent behavioral work on the topic also exists. We survey recent behavioral and neuroscientific literature with the aims of commenting on strengths and weaknesses of the literature and mapping new directions and...