45 papers in the library · 251 citations · publishing 2004-2026
Cerebral Cortex September 1, 2026 Axel Cleeremans, Morten Overgaard
We welcome Sepe et al'.s careful study of the visual capacities of the macaque in the early period that follows a lesion to primary visual cortex. Blindsight is a central phenomenon in the study of consciousness, for its existence suggests the possibility of unconscious vision, an inference that remains controversial. Here, we suggest that damage to visual cortex may produce not just less...
August 16, 2026 Morten Overgaard, Martin Dietz, Peter Thestrup Waade preprint
Scientific theories of consciousness are typically evaluated by comparing empirical findings across experimental paradigms. Such comparisons implicitly assume that different paradigms provide commensurable evidence and do not systematically favour particular theoretical interpretations. Here, we test this assumption using the updated ConTraSt database, comprising 518 published consciousness...
Communications Psychology November 26, 2025 Morten Overgaard, Peter Fazekas, Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup et al.
Consciousness research has long been dominated by competing grand theories, yet consensus remains elusive. We propose shifting focus toward construct-based, data-driven, and iterative approaches that identify the empirical building blocks of conscious experience and provide a more cumulative, integrative path forward for the field.
Neuroscience of Consciousness September 24, 2025 Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup, S. Fink, Morten Overgaard
Abstract It is well known that in interdisciplinary consciousness studies there are various competing hypotheses about the neural correlate(s) of consciousness (NCCs). Much contemporary work is dedicated to determining which of these hypotheses is right (or the weaker claim is to be preferred). The prevalent working assumption is that one of the competing hypotheses is correct, and the...
Frontiers in Psychology September 23, 2025 Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup, Andreas Stephens, Aron Balogh Sjöstrand et al. 4 citations
Which of the many available theories of consciousness should a newcomer to the field choose? We consider possible ways to deal with this conundrum. We argue that convergence of theories is unlikely. Next, we consider ways comparing theories highlighting significant issues with existing endeavors in this regard. Given the nature of the field, presumably empirical support has a critical role to...
Frontiers in Psychology April 2, 2025 Luca Simione, Antonino Raffone, Morten Overgaard et al.
The study of consciousness spans a vast array of domains, including perceptual awareness, cognition and metacognition, executive control, selfhood, sleep and dreaming, emotional competence, and empathy. It concerns both healthy states (e.g., meditation, aging, spiritual experiences) and pathological conditions (e.g., epilepsy, neglect syndromes, locked-in syndrome, minimally conscious states,...
Consciousness and Cognition September 1, 2024 Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup, Jakob Stenseke, Morten Overgaard
The recent "Conscious Turing Machine" (CTM) proposal offered by Manuel and Lenore Blum aims to define and explore consciousness, contribute to the solution of the hard problem, and demonstrate the value of theoretical computer science with respect to the study of consciousness. Surprisingly, given the ambitiousness and novelty of the proposal (and the prominence of its creators), CTM has...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences November 23, 2023 Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup, Morten Overgaard
In recent years increasing attention has been given to systematic comparison of theories of consciousness. Laudable practical projects have emerged in this regard, such as adversarial collaboration and the development of databases lending themselves to comparisons of empirical support for theories. In addition to the practical advances, theoretical advances have been made, such as a list of...
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews November 1, 2023 Peter Fazekas, Axel Cleeremans, Morten Overgaard
We propose a new approach to consciousness science that instead of comparing complex theoretical positions deconstructs existing theories, takes their central assumptions while disregarding their auxiliary hypotheses, and focuses its investigations on the main constructs that these central assumptions rely on (like global workspace, recurrent processing, metarepresentation). Studying how these...
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences September 28, 2023 Morten Overgaard
The contrasts between so-called objective and subjective measures of consciousness have been a dominating topic of discussion for decades. The debate has classically been dominated by two positions – that subjective measures may be completely or partially reduced to objective measures, and, alternatively that they must exist in parallel. I argue that many problems relate to subjective reports...
Frontiers in Psychology June 6, 2023 Luca Simione, Antonino Raffone, Roumen Kirov et al.
In conclusion, this collection addresses many fundamental issues that have emerged over the last few years in the quest to understand consciousness, including problems related to self-awareness and the implications of recent neuropsychological studies. Even if these articles open up more scientific questions than they answer, they can contribute to the debate around the methodological...
Frontiers in Psychology 2023 Oliver J Hulme, Barrie Roulston, Morten Overgaard
Scientific studies of perception use motoric reports as the principal means of communicating subjective experience. In such experiments, a widely held and implicit assumption is that the motor action conveys but does not tamper with perceptual experience. We tested nine observers on a luminance detection task in a cross-over repeated measures design. In separate conditions, observers reported...
European Journal of Neuroscience November 1, 2022 Lau M Andersen, Mikkel C Vinding, Kristian Sandberg et al.
In the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, it is often assumed that there is a stable set within the relevant sensory modality. Within the visual modality, the debate has centred upon whether frontal or occipital activations are the best predictors of perceptual awareness. Although not accepted by all as definitive evidence, no-report and decoding studies have indicated that...
Consciousness and Cognition September 1, 2022 Timo L Kvamme, Mesud Sarmanlu, Morten Overgaard
Double-blinding subjects to the experiment's purpose is an important standard in neurofeedback studies. However, it is difficult to provide evidence that humans are entirely unaware of certain information. This study used insights from consciousness studies and neurophenomenology to develop a contingency awareness questionnaire for neurofeedback. We assessed whether participants had an...
Neuroscience of Consciousness December 15, 2021 Morten Overgaard, Kristian Sandberg
Accurate insight into subjective experience is crucial for the science of consciousness. The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) was created in 2004 as a method for obtaining precise introspective reports for participants in research projects, and since then, the scale has become increasingly popular. This does not mean, of course, that no critiques have been voiced. Here, we briefly recapitulate...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences July 19, 2021 Morten Overgaard, Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup
Subjective experience has often taken center stage in debates between competing conceptual theories of the mind. This is also a central object of concern in the empirical domain, and especially in the search for the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). By now, most of the competing conceptual theories of consciousness have become aligned with distinct hypotheses about the NCCs. These...
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience May 21, 2021 Morten Overgaard
The question of consciousness in other species, not least species very physically different from humans such as insects, is highly challenging for a number of reasons. One reason is that we do not have any available empirical method to answer the question. Another reason is that current theories of consciousness disagree about the relation between physical structure and consciousness, i.e.,...
Neuroscience of Consciousness 2021 S. H. del Pin, Zuzanna Skóra, Kristian Sandberg et al.
Abstract The theoretical landscape of scientific studies of consciousness has flourished. Today, even multiple versions of the same theory are sometimes available. To advance the field, these theories should be directly compared to determine which are better at predicting and explaining empirical data. Systematic inquiries of this sort are seen in many subfields in cognitive psychology and...
Consciousness and Cognition August 14, 2020 Simon Hviid Del Pin, Zuzanna Skóra, Kristian Sandberg et al.
People often claim seeing images completely despite performing poorly. This highlights an issue with conscious representations. We introduce an experimental manipulation aiming to disentangle two prevalent positions: Rich views posit that people virtually represent the external world with unlimited capacity; Sparse views state that representations are reconstructed from expectations and...
July 26, 2020 Morten Overgaard, Jesper Mogensen, Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup
Drawing on neuroscientific research and metacognitive theory, this groundbreaking volume examines the theoretical implications that are elicited when neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) are identified.The relationship between consciousness and the brain has concerned philosophers for centuries, yet a tacit assumption in much empirically minded consciousness research seems to be that if we...
Cortex November 1, 2019 María Hernández-Lorca, Kristian Sandberg, Dominique Kessel et al.
Studies of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) combining MEG/EEG with behavioral data have described two main time ranges relating to conscious perception: 130-320 (the visual awareness negativity; VAN) and 300-500 (P3a) ms after stimulus onset. At the same time, two event-related potential (ERP) peaks have shown an emotional modulation of endogenous attention: the early posterior...
Sleep Medicine Reviews February 1, 2019 Peter Fazekas, Georgina Nemeth, Morten Overgaard
Reports of white dreams, the feeling of having had a dream experience without being able to specify this experience any further, make up almost one third of all dream reports, yet this phenomenon-until very recently-had not yet been in the focus of targeted investigations. White dreams are typically interpreted as forgotten dreams, and are sidelined as not being particularly informative with...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences September 19, 2018 Morten Overgaard 62 citations
In consciousness research, it is common to distinguish between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. Recently, a number of scientists have attempted to show that phenomenal content can be empirically separated from cognitive access and, accordingly, that the mental content that is accessed is not (always) identical to the content that is experienced. One notable position is that of...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences September 19, 2018 Peter Fazekas, Morten Overgaard 30 citations
The problem of perceptual consciousness-the question of how our subjective experiences (colours as we see them; sounds as we hear them; tastes, etc., as we feel them) could be accounted for in terms of brain processes-is often regarded as the greatest unsolved mystery of our times. In recent literature, one of the most pressing questions in this regard is whether the neural basis of perceptual...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences September 19, 2018 Jesper Mogensen, Morten Overgaard 17 citations
In the present communication, phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness and the closely related concept of working memory are presented in the context of a neurocognitive model-the REF (reorganization of elementary functions) framework. The REF framework is based on connectionist networks within which the 'units' are advanced processing modules called elementary functions (EFs). In this...