28 papers in the library · 143 citations · publishing 2011-2026
Behavioral and Brain Sciences September 17, 2026 Manuel Baltieri, Ryota Kanai
Seth's biological naturalism builds on ideas from predictive processing, the free energy principle, and active inference to (1) argue that only (some) biological systems are in the consciousness business and to (2) refute the possibility of artificial consciousness, i.e., consciousness in AI and other artificial systems. We find this perspective problematic for a few different reasons.
arXiv Preprint Archive August 16, 2026 Ryota Kanai preprint
Global workspace theory explains conscious access as the broadcasting of selected information to the rest of the network, but it lacks a formal criterion for identifying the mechanism that enables this access. We propose that a global workspace is a mediator, namely, a subnetwork that receives activity from distributed systems, transforms it through internal modes, and returns differentiated...
arXiv Preprint Archive June 13, 2026 Ryota Kanai, Shuqin Ma preprint
A common objection to artificial or simulated consciousness is that a simulated brain is no more conscious than simulated water is wet. We address this from the perspective of Intrinsic Computational Functionalism (ICF): if consciousness is computationally constituted, it depends not on externally imposed descriptions but on the computational structures a system physically realizes in virtue of...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences June 1, 2026 Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Tim Bayne et al.
Rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities has drawn fresh attention to the prospect of consciousness in AI. There is an urgent need for rigorous methods to assess AI systems for consciousness, but significant uncertainty about relevant issues in consciousness science. We present a method for assessing AI systems for consciousness that involves exploring what follows from...
PsyArXiv May 20, 2026 Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Ryota Kanai preprint
A central obstacle to a science of qualia is not only that qualia are subjective, but that we lacka principled way to individuate them. Before asking which neural mechanisms generate qualia,we must ask what counts as one quale rather than a compound of several experientialelements. Here we propose that qualia, in the narrow sense, should be defined asindecomposable units of phenomenal...
arXiv.org May 9, 2026 Ryota Kanai, Shu Ma preprint
Computational functionalism about consciousness is often criticized for relying on observer-relative interpretations of physical systems. This paper proposes a mathematical refinement of functionalism that avoids this problem. The central idea is that consciousness-relevant functional organization should be identified not with arbitrary input-output mappings, semantic labels, or externally...
PsyArXiv November 14, 2025 Masafumi Oizumi, Chanseok Lim, Ryota Kanai preprint
Qualia, the subjective qualities of experience, pose a fundamental challenge to scientific explanation. A promising recent approach is to characterize qualia by their relational structures rather than their intrinsic nature. Assuming the structure of qualia is characterized by the geometry of neural representations, we posit that this geometry is fundamentally organized by symmetry. We propose...
PsyArXiv October 24, 2025 Ryota Kanai, Yuwei Sun, Manuel Baltieri preprint
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have reignited questions about whether artificial systems possess consciousness. Yet, despite remarkable progress in reasoning and language understanding, current AI systems exist only within isolated episodes of computation. This paper argues that a missing ingredient in such systems is temporal continuity, i.e., the persistence of internal...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2025 Ryota Kanai, Ryota Takatsuki, Ippei Fujisawa
In this study, we explore how the notion of meta-representations in higher-order theories (HOT) of consciousness can be implemented in computational models. HOT suggests that consciousness emerges from meta-representations, which are representations of first-order sensory representations. However, translating this abstract concept into a concrete computational model, such as those used in...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2024 Arthur Juliani, Adam Safron, Ryota Kanai 9 citations
Abstract Psychedelic therapy has seen a resurgence of interest in the last decade, with promising clinical outcomes for the treatment of a variety of psychopathologies. In response to this success, several theoretical models have been proposed to account for the positive therapeutic effects of psychedelics. One of the more prominent models is “RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics,” which proposes...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2024 Ryota Kanai, Ippei Fujisawa
Abstract While falsifiability has been broadly discussed as a desirable property of a theory of consciousness, in this paper, we introduce the meta-theoretic concept of “Universality” as an additional desirable property for a theory of consciousness. The concept of universality, often assumed in physics, posits that the fundamental laws of nature are consistent and apply equally everywhere in...
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 2024 Rousslan Fernand Julien Dossa, Kai Arulkumaran, Arthur Juliani et al.
As the apparent intelligence of artificial neural networks (ANNs) advances, they are increasingly likened to the functional networks and information processing capabilities of the human brain. Such comparisons have typically focused on particular modalities, such as vision or language. The next frontier is to use the latest advances in ANNs to design and investigate scalable models of...
PsyArXiv September 25, 2023 Ryota Kanai, Ippei Fujisawa preprint
While falsifiability has been broadly discussed as a desirable property of a theory of consciousness, in this paper, we introduce the meta-theoretic concept of "Universality" as an additional desirable property for a theory of consciousness. The concept of universality, often assumed in physics, posits that the fundamental laws of nature are consistent and apply equally everywhere in the...
arXiv Preprint Archive August 17, 2023 Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Eric Elmoznino et al. preprint
Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argues for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of...
arXiv Preprint Archive March 24, 2022 Arthur Juliani, Kai Arulkumaran, Shuntaro Sasai et al. preprint
In popular media, there is often a connection drawn between the advent of awareness in artificial agents and those same agents simultaneously achieving human or superhuman level intelligence. In this work, we explore the validity and potential application of this seemingly intuitive link between consciousness and intelligence. We do so by examining the cognitive abilities associated with three...
Neural Networks January 2022 Angela J Langdon, Matthew Botvinick, Hiroyuki Nakahara et al.
The intersection between neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) research has created synergistic effects in both fields. While neuroscientific discoveries have inspired the development of AI architectures, new ideas and algorithms from AI research have produced new ways to study brain mechanisms. A well-known example is the case of reinforcement learning (RL), which has stimulated...
Trends in Neurosciences September 1, 2021 Rufin Vanrullen, Ryota Kanai
Recent advances in deep learning have allowed artificial intelligence (AI) to reach near human-level performance in many sensory, perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive tasks. There is a growing need, however, for novel, brain-inspired cognitive architectures. The Global Workspace Theory (GWT) refers to a large-scale system integrating and distributing information among networks of specialized...
arXiv Preprint Archive September 28, 2019 Acer Y. C. Chang, Martin Biehl, Yen Yu et al. preprint
Information processing in neural systems can be described and analysed at multiple spatiotemporal scales. Generally, information at lower levels is more fine-grained and can be coarse-grained in higher levels. However, information processed only at specific levels seems to be available for conscious awareness. We do not have direct experience of information available at the level of individual...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2019 Ryota Kanai, Acer Y. C. Chang, Yen Yu et al.
What is the biological advantage of having consciousness? Functions of consciousness have been elusive due to the subjective nature of consciousness and ample empirical evidence showing the presence of many nonconscious cognitive performances in the human brain. Drawing upon empirical literature, here, we propose that a core function of consciousness be the ability to internally generate...
Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) March 6, 2018 Jun Kitazono, Ryota Kanai, Masafumi Oizumi
The ability to integrate information in the brain is considered to be an essential property for cognition and consciousness. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) hypothesizes that the amount of integrated information ( Φ ) in the brain is related to the level of consciousness. IIT proposes that, to quantify information integration in a system as a whole, integrated information should be measured...
arXiv Preprint Archive December 19, 2017 Jun Kitazono, Ryota Kanai, Masafumi Oizumi preprint
The ability to integrate information in the brain is considered to be an essential property for cognition and consciousness. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) hypothesizes that the amount of integrated information ($Φ$) in the brain is related to the level of consciousness. IIT proposes that to quantify information integration in a system as a whole, integrated information should be measured...
arXiv Preprint Archive January 18, 2017 Satohiro Tajima, Ryota Kanai preprint
There has been increasing interest in the integrated information theory (IIT) ofconsciousness, which hypothesizes that consciousness is integrated information withinneuronal dynamics. However, the current formulation of IIT poses both practical andtheoretical problems when we aim to empirically test the theory by computingintegrated information from neuronal signals. For example, measuring...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2017 Satohiro Tajima, Ryota Kanai
There has been increasing interest in the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness, which hypothesizes that consciousness is integrated information within neuronal dynamics. However, the current formulation of IIT poses both practical and theoretical problems when empirically testing the theory by computing integrated information from neuronal signals. For example, measuring...
Journal of Neuroscience October 5, 2016 Maxine T. Sherman, Anil K. Seth, Ryota Kanai
It is clear that prior expectations shape perceptual decision-making, yet their contribution to the construction of subjective decision confidence remains largely unexplored. We recorded fMRI data while participants made perceptual decisions and confidence judgments, manipulating perceptual prior expectations while controlling for potential confounds of attention. Results show that subjective...
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience April 15, 2016 Maxine T. Sherman, Ryota Kanai, Anil K. Seth et al. 134 citations
Prior expectations have a powerful influence on perception, biasing both decision and confidence. However, how this occurs at the neural level remains unclear. It has been suggested that spontaneous alpha-band neural oscillations represent rhythms of the perceptual system that periodically modulate perceptual judgments. We hypothesized that these oscillations instantiate the effects of...