arXiv Preprint Archive
August 16, 2026
Ryota Kanai
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
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...
arXiv.org
May 9, 2026
Ryota Kanai, Shu Ma
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...
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...
arXiv Preprint Archive
August 17, 2023
Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Eric Elmoznino et al.
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.
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...
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.
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
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
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 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...
Neuroimage
October 15, 2014
Kristian Sandberg, Gareth Robert Barnes, Bahador Bahrami et al.
During binocular rivalry, visual perception alternates spontaneously between two different monocular images. Such perceptual reversals are slowed or halted if stimuli are presented intermittently with inter-stimulus intervals larger than ~400 ms--a phenomenon called stabilization. Often, the neural correlates of reversal and stabilization are studied separately, and both phenomena in turn are...
Ryota Kanai, Ippei Fujisawa, Shinya Tamai et al.
preprint
In this paper, we propose a hypothesis that consciousness has evolved to serve as a platform for general intelligence. This idea stems from considerations of potential biological functions of consciousness. Here we define general intelligence as the ability to apply knowledge and models acquired from past experiences to generate solutions to novel problems. Based on this definition, we propose...