PLoS Biology
July 6, 2026
Maëlan Q. Menétrey, Michael H Herzog, David Pascucci
In some forms of postdictive phenomena, later events influence the perception of earlier ones, suggesting that conscious perception may be preceded by extended periods of unconscious processing. An example is the Sequential Metacontrast (SQM) paradigm, in which vernier offsets are unconsciously integrated over several hundred milliseconds before conscious perception. Obviously, the integrated...
The Behavioral and brain sciences
June 25, 2026
Michael H Herzog, Adrien Doerig
Fleming and Michel associate consciousness with sensory horizons, model-based computations, reality monitoring, and decision termination. However, these functions can be implemented without consciousness and may make consciousness epiphenomenal. As with other current theories of consciousness, too much explanatory weight rests on a small number of explanatory factors.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
April 23, 2026
Michael H Herzog, Aaron Schurger, Adrien Doerig
All theories up to now relate consciousness to neural processes, circuits, etc. Quantum theories, such as orchestrated objective reduction (OrchOR), propose that proto-conscious events occur in the entire universe and full consciousness occurs only at the subcellular level in the microtubules of neurons. We outline challenges with this approach.
April 23, 2026
Michael H. Herzog, Aaron Schurger, Adrien Doerig
The scientific study of consciousness features a vast array of conflicting theories, but cross-disciplinary exchange between researchers from different camps is not always prevalent. This book seeks to address these complexities by providing a thorough introduction to the field while remaining accessible to those new to the topic. By exploring empirical methods, surveying a variety of competing...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
November 10, 2025
Elahe Arani, Simona Garobbio, Maya Roinishvili et al.
3 citations
Individuals with schizophrenia have less priors than controls, meaning they rely less upon their prior experiences to interpret the current stimuli. These differences in priors are expected to show as higher alternation rates in bistable perception tasks like the Structure-from-Motion (SfM) paradigm. In this paradigm, continuously moving dots in two dimensions are perceived subjectively as...
The European journal of neuroscience
June 1, 2022
Maëlan Q. Menétrey, Lukas Vogelsang, Michael H Herzog
Brain waves, determined by electrical and magnetic brain recordings (e.g., EEG and MEG), and fluctuating behavioral responses, determined by response time or accuracy measures, are frequently taken to support discrete perception. For example, it has been proposed that humans experience only one conscious percept per brain wave (e.g., during one alpha cycle). However, the proposed link between...
Consciousness and Cognition
February 1, 2022
Michael H Herzog, Aaron Schurger, Adrien Doerig
We recently put forward an argument, the Unfolding Argument (UA), that integrated information theory (IIT) and other causal structure theories are either already falsified or unfalsifiable, which provoked significant criticism. It seems that we and the critics agree that the main question in this debate is whether first-person experience, independent of third-person data, is a sufficient...
Cognitive Neuroscience
July 14, 2020
Adrien Doerig, Aaron Schurger, Michael H Herzog
ABSTRACT Consciousness is now a well-established field of empirical research. A large body of experimental results has been accumulated and is steadily growing. In parallel, many Theories of Consciousness (ToCs) have been proposed. These theories are diverse in nature, ranging from computational to neurophysiological and quantum theoretical approaches. This contrasts with other fields of...
Consciousness and Cognition
July 1, 2019
Adrien Doerig, Aaron Schurger, K. Hess et al.
How can we explain consciousness? This question has become a vibrant topic of neuroscience research in recent decades. A large body of empirical results has been accumulated, and many theories have been proposed. Certain theories suggest that consciousness should be explained in terms of brain functions, such as accessing information in a global workspace, applying higher order to lower order...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2019
Adrien Doerig, Frank Scharnowski, Michael H Herzog
Is consciousness a continuous stream, or do percepts occur only at certain moments of time? This age-old question is still under debate. Both positions face difficult problems, which we proposed to overcome with a 2-stage model, where unconscious processing continuously integrates information before a discrete, conscious percept occurs. Recently, Fekete et al. criticized our model. Here, we...