Postdiction and the speed of consciousness.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 25, 2026 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x25102859 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Humans Awareness Consciousness |
| Key points | Argues that the claim that postdiction reveals a lower bound for the speed of consciousness, and thereby shows that awareness is slow, is unsupported: postdiction neither demonstrates such a lower bound nor shows that awareness is slow. |
Abstract
A central plank of Fleming and Michel's thought-provoking paper is that postdiction reveals a lower bound for the speed of consciousness, showing that perceptual awareness is slow and motivating their perceptual reality monitoring theory of consciousness. The plank cannot bear the weight: Postdiction neither demonstrates a lower bound for the speed of consciousness nor shows that awareness is slow.