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...
Scientific Data
May 29, 2026
Ling Liu, Oscar Ferrante, Tara Ghafari et al.
Here, we present a large-scale, multi-center dataset of combined magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings, along with eye-tracking data and high-resolution structural MRI (T1); complementing with iEEG and fMRI datasets that are shared in accompanying data papers. The data was obtained through an adversarial collaboration between advocates of two neuroscientific...
Scientific Data
May 7, 2026
Aya Khalaf, David Richter, Yamil Vidal et al.
We present a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) dataset collected as part of an adversarial collaboration aimed at arbitrating between the Global Neuronal Workspace theory (GNWT) and the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness. Participants (N = 118) were presented with suprathreshold visual stimuli belonging to four different categories (faces, objects, letters, false fonts)...
Elife
January 13, 2026
François Stockart, Alexis Robin, Hal Blumenfeld et al.
Despite many years of research, the quest to identify neural correlates of perceptual consciousness (NCC) remains unresolved. One major obstacle lies in methodological limitations: most studies rely on non-invasive neural measures with limited spatial or temporal resolution making it difficult to disentangle proper NCCs from concurrent cognitive processes. Additionally, the relatively low...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2026
Alicia Franco-Martínez, Ricardo Rey-Sáez, Jesús Adrián-ventura et al.
1 citation
Although in recent years some studies have found evidence suggesting that working memory (WM) may operate on unconscious perceptual contents, decisive demonstrations of the existence of unconscious WM are lacking. In the present Registered Report, we replicate the first study on this topic by Soto et al. (Working memory without consciousness. Curr Biol 2011;21:R912-3.): a visual discrimination...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
December 17, 2025
Liad Mudrik, Nathan Faivre, Michael Pitts et al.
5 citations
Progress in the scientific study of consciousness has been impeded by several fundamental controversies. One pertains to a major divide between theories: sensory versus cognitive. Here, we argue that the key to resolving this controversy is to reevaluate the conceptual distinction proposed by Block in 1995 between phenomenal consciousness (P) and access consciousness (A). We propose that P and...
Frontiers in Science
October 30, 2025
Axel Cleeremans, Liad Mudrik, A. Seth
17 citations
Understanding the biophysical basis of consciousness remains a substantial challenge for 21st-century science. This endeavor is becoming even more pressing in light of accelerating progress in artificial intelligence and other technologies. In this article, we provide an overview of recent developments in the scientific study of consciousness and consider possible futures for the field. We...
Philosophy of Science
August 27, 2025
Niccolò Negro, Liad Mudrik
4 citations
Abstract Advances in animal sentience research, neural organoids, and artificial intelligence reinforce the relevance of justifying attributions of consciousness to nonstandard systems. Clarifying the argumentative structure behind these attributions is important for evaluating their validity. This article addresses this issue, concluding that analogical abduction—a form of reasoning combining...
The Behavioral and brain sciences
July 22, 2025
François Stockart, Maor Schreiber, Pietro Amerio et al.
20 citations
The scope of unconscious processing has long been, and still remains, a hotly debated issue. This is driven in part by the current diversity of methods to manipulate and measure perceptual consciousness. Here, we provide ten recommendations and nine outstanding issues about designing experimental paradigms, analyzing data, and reporting the results of studies on unconscious processing. These...
Nature
June 1, 2025
Oscar Ferrante, Urszula Gorska-Klimowska, Simon Henin et al.
94 citations
Different theories explain how subjective experience arises from brain activity1,2. These theories have independently accrued evidence, but have not been directly compared3. Here we present an open science adversarial collaboration directly juxtaposing integrated information theory (IIT)4,5 and global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT)6-10 via a theory-neutral consortium11-13. The theory...
Scientific Data
May 23, 2025
Alia Seedat, Alex Lepauvre, Jay Jeschke et al.
5 citations
We introduce an intracranial EEG (iEEG) dataset collected as part of an adversarial collaboration between proponents of two theories of consciousness: Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory. The data were recorded from 38 patients undergoing intracranial monitoring of epileptic seizures across three research centers using the same experimental protocol. Participants...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
March 1, 2025
Liad Mudrik, Melanie Boly, Stanislas Dehaene et al.
68 citations
As the field of consciousness science matures, the research agenda has expanded from an initial focus on the neural correlates of consciousness, to developing and testing theories of consciousness. Several theories have been put forward, each aiming to elucidate the relationship between consciousness and brain function. However, there is an ongoing, intense debate regarding whether these...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2025
Shaked Palgi, Tamara Bester-Arest, Nathan Faivre et al.
The scope of unconscious integration is widely debated. Here, we examined this question, focusing specifically on deciphering the relations between two associatively related objects, in a set of five behavioral and electrophysiological experiments. Participants were presented with masked pairs of related and unrelated objects and were asked to judge their relatedness. When the masked pairs were...
Journal of experimental psychology. General
October 1, 2024
Amir Tal, Liad Mudrik
5 citations
The field of consciousness studies has yielded various-sometimes contradicting-accounts regarding the function of consciousness, ranging from denying it has such function to claiming that any high-level cognitive function requires consciousness. Empirical findings supporting both accounts were reported, yet some of them have been recently revisited based on failures to replicate. Here, we aimed...
The European journal of neuroscience
September 1, 2024
Alessandra Buccella, Uri Maoz, Liad Mudrik
In recent decades, the neuroscientific community has moved from describing the neural underpinnings of mental phenomena-as characterized by experimental psychology and philosophy of mind-to attempting to redefine those mental phenomena based on neural findings. Nowadays, many are intrigued by the idea that neuroscience might provide the "missing piece" that would allow philosophers (and, to an...
Neuron
May 15, 2024
Liad Mudrik, Rony Hirschhorn, Uri Korisky
15 citations
The study of consciousness has developed well-controlled, rigorous methods for manipulating and measuring consciousness. Yet, in the process, experimental paradigms grew farther away from everyday conscious and unconscious processes, which raises the concern of ecological validity. In this review, we suggest that the field can benefit from adopting a more ecological approach, akin to other...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
March 1, 2024
Tim Bayne, Anil K. Seth, Marcello Massimini et al.
Which systems/organisms are conscious? New tests for consciousness ('C-tests') are urgently needed. There is persisting uncertainty about when consciousness arises in human development, when it is lost due to neurological disorders and brain injury, and how it is distributed in nonhuman species. This need is amplified by recent and rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), neural...
Cognition
September 1, 2023
Yoni Zion Amir, Yaniv Assaf, Yossi Yovel et al.
25 citations
Can one have a phenomenal experience to which one does not have access? That is, can you experience something without knowing? The dissociation between phenomenal (P) and access (A) consciousness is widely debated. A major challenge to the supporters of this dissociation is the apparent inability to experimentally demonstrate that P-without-A consciousness exists; once participants report...
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...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 23, 2023
Oscar Ferrante, Urszula Gorska-Klimowska, Simon Henin et al.
preprint
Different theories explain how subjective experience arises from brain activity1,2. These theories have independently accrued evidence, yet, confirmation bias and dependence on design choices hamper progress in the field3. Here, we present an open science adversarial collaboration which directly juxtaposes Integrated Information Theory (IIT)4,5 and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT)6–10,...
PLoS One
February 10, 2023
Lucia Melloni, Liad Mudrik, Michael Pitts et al.
106 citations
The relationship between conscious experience and brain activity has intrigued scientists and philosophers for centuries. In the last decades, several theories have suggested different accounts for these relationships. These theories have developed in parallel, with little to no cross-talk among them. To advance research on consciousness, we established an adversarial collaboration between...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 10, 2021
Itay Yaron, Lucia Melloni, Michael Pitts et al.
21 citations
preprint
Understanding how consciousness arises from neural activity remains one of the biggest challenges for neuroscience. Numerous theories have been proposed in recent years, each gaining independent empirical support. Currently, there is no comprehensive, quantitative and theory-neutral overview of the field that enables an evaluation of how theoretical frameworks interact with empirical research....
Science
May 28, 2021
Lucia Melloni, Liad Mudrik, Michael Pitts et al.
Championing open science, an adversarial collaboration aims to unravel the footprints of consciousness The history of science includes numerous challenging problems, including the “hard problem” (1) of consciousness: Why does an assembly of neurons—no matter how complex, such as the human brain—give rise to perceptions and feelings that are consciously experienced, such as the sweetness of...