Behavioral and Brain Sciences
March 1, 1997
Bruce Mangan
2 citations
P/A (Block's phenomenal/access) confounds a logical distinction with an empirical claim. Success of P/A in its logical role has almost no bearing on its plausibility as an empirical thesis (i.e., that two kinds of consciousness exist). The advantage of P/A over a single-consciousness assumption is unclear, but one of Block's analogies for P (liquid in a hydraulic computer) may be used to...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
March 1, 1997
Ernst Pöppel
States of being conscious (S) can be defined on the basis of temporal information processing. A high-frequency mechanism provides atemporal system states with periods of approximately 30 msec to implement the functional connection of distributed activities allowing the construction of primordial events; a low frequency mechanism characterized by automatic temporal integration sets up temporal...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
March 1, 1997
Denise Gamble
P-Consciousness (P) is to be understood in terms of an immediate fluctuating continuum that is a presentation of raw experiential matter against which A-consciousness (A) acts to objectify, impose form or make determinate “thinkable” contents. A representationalises P but P is not itself representational, at least in terms of some concepts of “representation.” Block's arguments fall short of...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
March 1, 1997
Joseph E. Bogen
Both Block and the commentators who accepted his P versus A distinction readily recognize examples of P without A but not vice versa. As an example of A without P, Block hypothesized a “zombie,” computationally like a human but without subjectivity. This would appear to describe the disconnected right hemisphere of the split-brain subject, unless one alternatively opts for two parallel...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 1, 1996
Max Velmans
36 citations
Abstract Viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness appears to be necessary for complex, novel human activity. Viewed from a third-person perspective, however, consciousness appears to play no role in the activity of brains – producing a“causal paradox.” To resolve this paradox one needs to distinguish consciousness of processing from consciousness accompanying processing or causing...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 1, 1996
Sam S. Rakover
24 citations
Abstract Velmans (1991a; 1991b) proposed that consciousness plays a minor explanatory role in the information processing approach and that unconscious mechanisms process stimuli and responses and intervene between them. In contrast, the present commentary describes a thought experiment suggesting that, although input information is initially processed unconsciously, subsequent processing...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Howard Rachlin
13 citations
Abstract If sensations were behaviorally conceived, as they should be, as complex functional patterns of interaction between overt behavior and the environment, there would be no point in searching for them as instantaneous psychic elements (qualia) within the brain or as internal products of the brain.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Susan Hurley
3 citations
Abstract Perspective and reflection (whether involving conceptual or nonconceptual content) have each been considered in some way basic to phenomenal consciousness. Each has possible evolutionary value, though neither seems sufficient for consciousness. Consider an account of consciousness in terms of the combination of perspective and reflection, its relationship to the problem of other minds,...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Andrew Crider
AbstractSegmentalized consciousness in schizophrenia reflects a loss of the normal Gestalt organization and contextualization of perception. Grays model explains such segmentalization in terms of septohippocampal dysfunction, which is consistent with known neuropsychological impairment in schizophrenia. However, other considerations suggest that everyday perception and its failure in...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Neal R. Swerdlow
AbstractGray extrapolates from circuit models of psychopathology to propose neural substrates for the contents of consciousness. I raise three concerns: (1) knowledge of synaptic arrangements may be inadequate to fully support his model; (2) latent inhibition deficits in schizophrenia, a focus of this and related models, are complex and deserve replication; and (3) this conjecture omits...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Colin G. Ellard
AbstractThe commentary argues (1) that we cannot be sure that human consciousness has survival value and (2) that in order to understand the origins and, perhaps, the function of consciousness, we should examine the behavioural and neural precursors to consciousness in nonhumans. An example is given of research on the role of context in decisions regarding fleeing from probable predators in the...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Max Velmans
AbstractThis commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousness might explain how consciousness arises from the brain, but does not address how consciousness evolved, affects behaviour or confers survival value. The commentary argues that such limitations apply to all neurophysiological or other thirdperson perspective models. To approach such...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
R. E. Lubow
AbstractTo avoid teleological interpretations, it is important to make a distinction between functions and uses of consciousness, and to address questions concerning the consequences of consciousness. Assumptions about the phylogenetic distribution of consciousness are examined. It is concluded that there is some value in identifying consciousness an exclusively human attribute.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Jeffrey A. Gray
AbstractThe first claim in the target article was that there is as yet no transparent, causal account of the relations between consciousness and brain-and-behaviour. That claim remains firm. The second claim was that the contents of consciousness consist, psychologically, of the outputs of a comparator system; the third consisted of a description of the brain mechanisms proposed to instantiate...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Antti Revonsuo
AbstractIn this commentary, I point out some weaknesses in Gray's target article and, in the light of that discussion, I attempt to delineate the kinds of problem a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness faces on its way to a scientific understanding of subjective experience.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Carlo Umiltà, Marco Zorzi
AbstractOn the basis of neuropsychological evidence, it is clear that attention should be given a role in any model (or conjecture) of consciousness. What is known about the many instances of dissociation between explicit and implicit knowledge after brain damage suggests that conscious experience might not be linked to a restricted area of the brain. Even if it were true that there is a single...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
N. A. Schmajuk, E. Axelrad
AbstractThe communicative aspects of the contents of consciousness are analyzed in the framework of a neural network model of animal communication. We discuss some issues raised by Gray, such as the control of the contents of consciousness, the adaptive value of consciousness, conscious and unconscious behaviors, and the nature of a model's consciousness.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
David Salter
AbstractThis commentary addresses three distinctions: the relationship of conscious to unconscious processes, whether these processes are single or multiple, and the distinction between vehicle and content. Also considered are questions of the relationship between multiple drafts to consciousness, the oneness of phenomenal perception as an illusion, the role of consciousness in the redrafting...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Jeffrey Foss
AbstractBecause consciousness has an organizational, or functional, center, Gray supposes that there must be a corresponding physical center in the brain. He proposes further that since this center generates consciousness, ablating it would eliminate consciousness, while leaving behavior intact. But the center of consciousness is simply the product of the functional linkages among sensory...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Joseph Glicksohn
AbstractThe notion of “multiple drafts” is one that has attracted the attention of researchers working within the “microgenetic” framework to perception and cognition, deriving from the work of Heinz Werner (1948). Dennett and Kinsboume's (1992) position can be further explored with reference to this earlier literature. The present commentary attempts to ground the D&K model within this larger...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 1995
Chris Frith
AbstractGray has expanded his account of schizophrenia to explain consciousness as well. His theory explains neither phenomenon adequately because he treats individual minds (and brains) in isolation. The primary function of consciousness is to permit high level interactions with other conscious beings. The key symptoms of schizophrenia reflect a failure of this mechanism.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 1, 1995
Jürgen Schröder
AbstractSearle's (1990) argument for the “Connection Principle” seems to rest on a confusion between ontological and epistemological claims. The potential consciousness of a mental state does not yield the same effect as does its actual consciousness, namely, the preservation of aspectual shape. Searle's distinction between the consciousness of an intentional object and that of a mental state,...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 1, 1995
Ned Block
3,267 citations
Abstract Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different “consciousnesses.” Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 1, 1995
J. A. Church
13 citations
Abstract To demonstrate that a fallacy is committed, Block needs to convince us of two things: first, that theconceptof phenomenal consciousness is distinct from that of access consciousness, and second, that it picks out a different property from that of access consciousness. I raise doubt about both of these claims, suggesting that the concept of a phenomenal property is the concept of a...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 1, 1995
Patricia Kitcher
6 citations
Abstract This commentary offers two criticisms of Block's account of phenomenal consciousness and a brief sketch of a rival account. The negative points are that monitoring consciousness also involves the possession of certain states and that phenomenal consciousness inevitably involves some sort of monitoring. My positive suggestion is that “phenomenal consciousness” may refer to our ability...