bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 8, 2026
Zefan Zheng, Darinka Trübutschek, Yongchun Cai et al.
preprint
Abstract Consciousness is mostly studied as if it were composed of independent snapshots, aggregating reports over trials and experimental contexts, disregarding any temporal aspect. However, almost nothing is known about how conscious experience spontaneously fluctuates in time. To shed light on the temporal dynamics of conscious awareness, we evaluated the temporal autocorrelation of...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
June 1, 2026
Agustin Ibanez, Nick Roth, Aaron Colverson et al.
Metaphors have long played multiple roles in conceptualizing the mind and brain, guiding the development and refinement of theoretical models and empirical questions. Early analogies (comparing the brain to hydraulic systems, telephone exchanges, factories, or libraries) offered shortcuts to understanding aspects of cognition, memory, and brain dynamics. From theoretical frameworks, metaphors...
PsyArXiv
May 29, 2026
Zefan Zheng, Robert Chis-Ciure, Peter Thestrup Waade et al.
1 citation
preprint
Consciousness science is fragmented, and empirical investigations are confined within each theory of consciousness’ (TOC) framework. Proliferating ToCs accumulate anomalies without progress, operating orthogonally. The principle of recurrency – functional and architectural – offers a unifying, mechanistic scaffold for consciousness to arise. We show that all theories tacitly invoke feedback...
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)...
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
November 13, 2025
Yuranny Cabral-Calderin, Julio C. Hechavarria, Lucia Melloni
2 citations
Understanding consciousness remains a significant challenge in science. What distinguishes conscious beings from unconscious systems, such as organoids, artificial intelligence or other non-sentient entities? Research on consciousness often focuses on identifying brain activity associated with conscious and non-conscious states, primarily in neurotypical human adults. However, this approach is...
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 and Biobehavioral Reviews
June 1, 2024
Robert Chis-Ciure, Lucia Melloni, Georg Northoff
Consciousness science is marred by disparate constructs and methodologies, making it challenging to systematically compare theories. This foundational crisis casts doubts on the scientific character of the field itself. Addressing it, we propose a framework for systematically comparing consciousness theories by introducing a novel inter-theory classification interface, the Measure Centrality...
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...
Review of Philosophy and Psychology
August 10, 2021
M. Vilas, R. Auksztulewicz, Lucia Melloni
Recently, the mechanistic framework of active inference has been put forward as a principled foundation to develop an overarching theory of consciousness which would help address conceptual disparities in the field (Wiese 2018; Hohwy and Seth 2020). For that promise to bear out, we argue that current proposals resting on the active inference scheme need refinement to become a process theory of...
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...
Nature Human Behaviour
February 1, 2019
M. Michel, Diane M Beck, Ned Block et al.
Scientific research on consciousness is critical to multiple scientific, clinical, and ethical issues. The growth of the field could also be beneficial to several areas including neurology and mental health research. To achieve this goal, we need to set funding priorities carefully and address problems such as job creation and potential media misrepresentation.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2016
Jaan Aru, Renate Rutiku, Michael Wibral et al.
Constructive theories of brain function such as predictive coding posit that prior knowledge affects our experience of the world quickly and directly. However, it is yet unknown how swiftly prior knowledge impacts the neural processes giving rise to conscious experience. Here we used an experimental paradigm where prior knowledge augmented perception and measured the timing of this effect with...
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Jaan Aru, Talis Bachmann, Wolf Singer et al.
It has been proposed that one key step for solving the mystery of consciousness is to locate the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). The experimental paradigms for revealing the NCC have commonly applied the contrast between conditions with and without conscious perception. However, such contrast does not exclusively reveal the neural processes directly related to conscious experience of...
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
December 17, 2011
Jaan Aru, Talis Bachmann, Wolf Singer et al.
612 citations
Solving the problem of consciousness remains one of the biggest challenges in modern science. One key step towards understanding consciousness is to empirically narrow down neural processes associated with the subjective experience of a particular content. To unravel these neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) a common scientific strategy is to compare perceptual conditions in which...
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
January 26, 2011
Lucia Melloni, Caspar M Schwiedrzik, Notger Müller et al.
Previous experience allows the brain to predict what comes next. How these expectations affect conscious experience is poorly understood. In particular, it is unknown whether and when expectations interact with sensory evidence in granting access to conscious perception, and how this is reflected electrophysiologically. Here, we parametrically manipulate sensory evidence and expectations while...