Consciousness and Cognition
May 19, 2003
Arne Dietrich
486 citations
Altered states of consciousness—such as dreaming, endurance running, meditation, daydreaming, hypnosis, and drug-induced states—are primarily caused by temporary reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region supporting higher-order cognitive functions. This transient hypofrontality is proposed as the unifying feature across all altered states, while the unique qualities of each state arise from which specific frontal circuits remain more or less active. Consciousness is conceptualized as a hierarchy of cognitive functions, with the prefrontal cortex at the top contributing the most sophisticated content. The framework generates testable hypotheses about how subtle prefrontal changes produce diverse conscious experiences.
Consciousness and Cognition
April 1, 2020
Jona Förster, Mika Koivisto, Antti Revonsuo
176 citations
The earliest and most reliable brain signal linked to visual phenomenal consciousness is the visual awareness negativity (VAN), a negative voltage deflection occurring around 200-300 milliseconds after a stimulus appears over posterior scalp regions. A later positive component, the late positivity (LP), which appears over frontal areas around 300-500 milliseconds, likely reflects later cognitive processes such as reflective or access consciousness rather than phenomenal awareness itself. This conclusion is supported by a review of event-related potential and magnetoencephalography studies published since 2010 that directly compared brain responses to consciously perceived versus unseen stimuli. The evidence strengthens VAN's role as the primary neural correlate of phenomenal consciousness and further undermines LP as a marker of phenomenal awareness.
Consciousness and Cognition
April 5, 2009
Jakob Hohwy
164 citations
The search for the neural correlates of consciousness faces problems in both of its main approaches. The content-based approach, which contrasts conscious perception of different stimuli like faces versus houses, appears to set aside crucial aspects of consciousness. The state-based approach, which contrasts overall conscious states like dreamless sleep versus wakefulness, seems over-inclusive in a way that is hard to rectify without losing the crucial conscious-unconscious contrast. Consequently, the search for the neural correlates of consciousness needs new experimental paradigms.
Consciousness and Cognition
August 1, 2019
Michael Lifshitz, Michiel van Elk, T M Luhrmann
162 citations
A general tendency called 'absorption'—the capacity to become deeply immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences—underlies a broad proclivity for spiritual experiences. People high in absorption readily sense supernatural presences, receive messages from God, and feel self-transcendence, awe, and wonder. High scorers on the Tellegen Absorption Scale report vivid experiences such as hearing God's voice during prayer, intense mystical states from psychedelics or placebo brain-stimulation, and strong feelings of presence and transcendence when encountering natural beauty, virtual reality, or music. Absorption appears to intensify inner and outer sensory experience, blending prior expectation with novel engagement, making imagined things feel more real.
Consciousness and Cognition
December 1, 2015
Yochai Ataria, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
158 citations
Based on detailed self-reports from a long-term mindfulness practitioner with about 20,000 hours of meditation experience, the sense of boundaries (SB) can shift through three stages: default, dissolving, and disappearing. During these shifts, seven overlapping categories change, including senses of internal versus external, time, location, self, agency, ownership, and the first-person perspective. Two categories—the touching/touched structure and bodily feelings—persist even when the SB disappears entirely. The findings suggest that the sense of boundaries is not a single, fixed experience but a composite of multiple, separable dimensions that can be altered through meditative practice.
Consciousness and Cognition
June 1, 2013
Louis Sass, Elizabeth Pienkos, Barnaby Nelson et al.
144 citations
Anomalous self-experiences are central to schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. This analysis compared such experiences in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, as cataloged in the EASE, with those described in severe depersonalization. Numerous affinities were found, showing that pure forms of diminished self-affection (depersonalization) can involve experiences resembling those of schizophrenia. However, important discrepancies emerged, suggesting that more automatic or deficiency-like factors—probably involving self/world or self/other confusion and erosion of first-person perspective—are more distinctive of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
Consciousness and Cognition
July 1, 2016
Josef Parnas, Mads Gram Henriksen
128 citations
Mysticism and schizophrenia, though distinct categories, share important phenomenological similarities that have been largely overlooked. This paper explores structural analogies between key features of mysticism and major clinical-phenomenological aspects of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including attitudes, the nature of experience, and the experience of an 'other' reality. These features revolve around basic dimensions of consciousness and appear to involve a specific alteration of the structure of consciousness itself. This finding has implications for understanding consciousness and its psychopathological distortions.
Consciousness and Cognition
September 1, 2007
Claire Petitmengin, Vincent Navarro, Michel Le van Quyen
123 citations
A dynamic approach to epileptic seizure anticipation, combining neuro-dynamic analysis of brain activity with pheno-dynamic analysis of subjective experience, can guide and determine each other. This method consolidates the foundations for a cognitive, non-pharmacological therapy for epilepsy. The neuro-phenomenological co-determination demonstrated through this example offers new insight into the gap between subjective experience and neurophysiological activity.
Consciousness and Cognition
December 1, 2002
David Rosenthal
118 citations
Ned Block's widely used distinction between phenomenal consciousness (raw subjective experience) and access consciousness (information available for reasoning and action) is flawed because it smuggles in unargued theoretical assumptions. The distinction between phenomenal and reflexive consciousness also suffers from this problem. While mental states with qualitative character differ from those without, being conscious is the same property for both. Block's notion of access consciousness does not capture what we intuitively mean by a mental state's being conscious. More critically, his concept of phenomenal consciousness is ambiguous between two distinct mental properties, which begs important theoretical questions. Once these are distinguished, qualitative consciousness can be explained by a model like the higher-order-thought hypothesis.
Consciousness and Cognition
May 1, 2021
Anna Ciaunica, Axel Constant, Hubert Preissl et al.
99 citations
Perceptual experiences are shaped by prior events, as argued by Predictive Processing and Active Inference frameworks. This paper examines how such experiences begin before birth, within the womb. A key but often neglected point is that humans develop inside another human body, a universal experience. The authors focus on the emergence of minimal selfhood in utero as a process of co-embodiment and co-homeostasis, emphasizing their interdependence. They conclude by discussing implications for debates on conscious experience, the minimal self, and social cognition.
Consciousness and Cognition
March 1, 2019
Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Vanessa Charland-Verville et al.
98 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) share consistent features across cultures, suggesting a common neurobiological basis. Analyzing semantic similarity between about 15,000 reports from 165 psychoactive substances and 625 NDE narratives, the NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine produced reports most similar to NDEs, followed by Salvia divinorum and serotonergic psychedelics like DMT. The similarity was driven by concepts of self and environmental consciousness, as well as therapeutic, ceremonial, and religious aspects of drug use. Ketamine may serve as a safe experimental model for NDE phenomenology, and endogenous NMDA antagonists might be released near death.
Consciousness and Cognition
June 20, 2016
David Saunders, Chris A Roe, Graham Smith et al.
93 citations
A meta-analysis of 34 studies from 1966 to 2016 estimated that 55% of people have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetime, with a 95% confidence interval of 49% to 62%. A separate analysis of 25 studies found that 23% of people experience lucid dreams at least monthly, with a 95% confidence interval of 20% to 25%. The analysis used a quality effects method to reduce the influence of study quality on the estimates. Moderator analyses found no systematic bias from suspected sources of variability. These findings align with earlier estimates but are based on more robust evidence.
Consciousness and Cognition
March 1, 2012
Alexander A Fingelkurts, Andrew A Fingelkurts, Sergio Bagnato et al.
91 citations
Resting electroencephalogram (EEG) microstates—brief, recurring patterns of brain activity—relate to levels of consciousness in brain-damaged patients and healthy individuals. A reduced number of microstate types was associated with altered consciousness, and unawareness corresponded to a lack of diversity in alpha-rhythmic microstates. Delta-, theta-, and slow-alpha-rhythmic microstates were more probable and longer during unawareness, whereas fast-alpha-rhythmic microstates were linked to consciousness. The findings suggest resting EEG can reveal neural correlates of consciousness, with potential implications for clinical care and medical-legal decisions for patients with disorders of consciousness.
Consciousness and Cognition
September 8, 2013
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
88 citations
Applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during REM sleep increased dream lucidity in frequent lucid dreamers, though the effects were not strong. Nineteen participants spent three nights in a sleep laboratory; on the second and third nights they randomly received either 1 mA tDCS for 10 minutes or sham stimulation during each REM period starting with the second one. Self-ratings showed increased lucidity only in frequent lucid dreamers. The results provide preliminary support for the involvement of the DLPFC in lucid dreaming, but further research controlling for indirect effects and including other brain regions is needed.
Consciousness and Cognition
June 1, 1994
Tracey L. Kahan, Stephen LaBerge
87 citations
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Consciousness and Cognition
September 1, 2019
Mads Gram Henriksen, Josef Parnas, Dan Zahavi
82 citations
In consciousness research, the authors defend experiential minimalism, the view that for-me-ness (or minimal selfhood) is a necessary, universal feature of all conscious experience. They refute claims that thought insertion in schizophrenia is a counterexample showing experiences without for-me-ness. Instead, they argue that thought insertion involves a disturbed, not absent, for-me-ness. The authors highlight unaddressed methodological and psychopathological problems in philosophical discussions of thought insertion and offer a novel account of how for-me-ness is disturbed in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, potentially contributing to the formation of thought insertion.
Consciousness and Cognition
April 28, 2022
Anna Ciaunica, Anil K. Seth, Jakub Limanowski et al.
76 citations
Depersonalisation disorder may arise when the brain fails to modulate sensory precision, leading to a loss of the normal sense of control over one's own perceptions and actions. The paper proposes that individuals with depersonalisation adopt the hypothesis that they are embodied perceivers who are not in control of their perception, while still recognizing that the controlling agent is themselves. This account uses predictive processing to explain the phenomenology of depersonalisation, including the feeling of being detached from one's own thoughts and actions. The analysis suggests specific psychophysical and physiological abnormalities that could underlie these experiences.
Consciousness and Cognition
November 1, 2020
Charlotte Martial, Jessica Simon, Ninon Puttaert et al.
69 citations
Two scales for measuring near-death experiences (NDEs) were evaluated. The original NDE scale showed several weaknesses. A new 20-item Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale was developed and validated, revealing a five-factor structure covering relevant dimensions. The NDE-C scale demonstrated very good internal consistency (Cronbach α = 0.85) and concurrent validity (correlations above 0.76). This new reliable scale should facilitate future research on NDEs.
Consciousness and Cognition
January 1, 2016
Chris Letheby
68 citations
The concept of 'epistemic innocence' holds that some flawed cognitive processes can still provide valuable knowledge otherwise unavailable. This idea is applied to psychedelic drugs, often dismissed as epistemically harmful due to their label 'hallucinogens'. The argument is that certain psychedelic states can be epistemically innocent, offering unique epistemic benefits despite their suboptimal nature. This conclusion has implications for psychedelic therapy policy and also refines the concept of epistemic innocence itself.
Consciousness and Cognition
January 10, 2012
Gráinne Schäfer, Amanda Feilding, Celia J. A. Morgan et al.
60 citations
Cannabis acutely increases schizotypy and chronic use is linked to higher rates of psychosis. Creative individuals tend to have higher schizotypy, but the connection between cannabis, schizotypy, and creativity had not been studied. In 160 cannabis users tested sober and intoxicated, cannabis increased verbal fluency in low-creative individuals to the same level as high-creative individuals. Cannabis also increased state psychosis-like symptoms in both groups. High-creativity participants had significantly higher trait schizotypy, but this was not linked to the verbal fluency change. Acute cannabis use enhances divergent thinking, measured by verbal fluency, specifically in those with low trait creativity.
Consciousness and Cognition
February 1, 2016
Arien Mack, Muge Erol, Jason Clarke et al.
58 citations
More than half of participants failed to notice when a letter matrix was completely absent or distorted, a phenomenon called inattentional blindness. These findings provide strong evidence that iconic memory requires attention and that conscious perception does as well, contradicting the idea that iconic memory has a phenomenal experience component independent of attention.
Consciousness and Cognition
February 16, 2011
Leanne K. Wilkins, Todd A. Girard, J. Allan Cheyne
57 citations
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are linked to specific brain regions, but little is known about the neurochemical systems involved. Ketamine, a drug that produces dissociative effects, offers a way to study this. An online survey of 192 people found that both how often someone had used ketamine in their lifetime and whether they had OBEs while on ketamine were more strongly tied to how often they had OBEs and related experiences than other drugs were. The apparent effects of other drugs could mostly be explained by the fact that people who used them also tended to use ketamine. These findings suggest NMDA receptors play a role in OBEs.
Consciousness and Cognition
October 1, 2020
Richard Heersmink
56 citations
The boundaries of selves are fluid, shifting across biological, artifactual, and sociocultural structures. This analysis distinguishes minimal self, person, and narrative self, then surveys how philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists argue that embodiment, cognition, emotion, consciousness, and moral character can be extended, with implications for self-boundaries. It reviews criticisms of the extended self and focuses on the link between the extended mind and extended self, which has received the most attention, while also discussing accounts developed independently. The article concludes by drawing out conceptual, methodological, and normative implications and suggesting directions for future research.
Consciousness and Cognition
January 1, 2015
Amanda E Berman, Larry Stevens
55 citations
Meditation's benefits are well documented, but its underlying mechanisms remain unclear due to a lack of unified taxonomy and confusion between practice methods and resulting states. This study aimed to identify Nondual Awareness—a theoretically universal culminating meditative state distinct from the method or practice state. Participants meditated in the lab while EEG patterns were recorded. During reported nondual events, EEG power was significantly higher in slower wave frequencies (delta, theta, alpha). These events were neurologically distinct from meditation sessions overall, which showed significant elevation in the gamma range.
Consciousness and Cognition
June 1, 2010
Antonino Raffone, Martina Pantani
51 citations
A unifying global workspace model proposes that phenomenal and access consciousness arise from distinct yet interacting brain loops involving recurrent neural interactions. Feedback signaling onto sensory cortical maps is critical for phenomenal consciousness, while two forms of top-down attention—attention for perception and attention for access—play differential roles for phenomenal and access consciousness. The model was implemented as a neural network that simulated single and multiple visual object processing and the attentional blink.