Consciousness in the cradle: on the emergence of infant experience

Bayne, Tim; Frohlich, Joel; Cusack, Rhodri; Moser, Julia; Naci, Lorina

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2023.08.018

Cited by 37 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 137 publications

(167 reference statements)

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“…The construct-first approach invites a 'back to basics' attitude that focuses on dissecting existing theories to analyze their central assumptions and the theoretical constructs they utilize. Using these constructs as dimensions of a construct space offers a new tool that can be a true alternative of existing approaches that focus on theory comparison from the perspectives of empirical predictions (Melloni et al, 2021(Melloni et al, , 2023Doerig et al, 2021;Cogitate et al, 2023a), explanatory targets (Seth and Bayne, 2022;Northoff and Lamme, 2020) or specific cases and conditions like infant consciousness (Bayne et al, 2023) or mental disorder (Stefanelli, 2023). The construct-first approach neither assumes nor is motivated to establish the primacy of any one existing theoretical framework over the others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A construct-first approach to consciousness science

Fazekas,

Cleeremans,

Overgaard

2023

Preprint

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We propose a new approach to consciousness science that instead of comparing complex theoretical positions deconstructs existing theories, takes their core assumptions while disregarding their auxiliary hypotheses, and focuses its investigations on the main constructs that these core assumptions rely on (like global workspace, recurrent processing, metarepresentation). Studying how these main constructs are anchored in lower-level constructs characterizing underlying neural processing will not just offer an alternative to theory comparisons but will also take us one step closer to empirical resolutions. Moreover, exploring the compatibility and possible combinations of the lower-level constructs will allow for new theoretical syntheses. This construct-first approach will improve our ability to understand the commitments of existing theories and pave the way for moving beyond them.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A construct-first approach to consciousness science

Fazekas,

Cleeremans,

Overgaard

2023

Preprint

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“…Turning to the question of developmental sequence, the key point relates to infantile amnesia, a property of human development that we, as an altricial species, likely share with numerous other mammals. This is the period when the newborn shows evidence of phenomenal consciousness ( Lagercrantz and Changeux, 2010 ; Bayne et al, 2023 ), but its memory systems are not yet fully developed ( Hayne, 2004 ; Alberini and Travaglia, 2017 ). One view is that intentionality in the sense of goal-directed actions develops earlier, in utero ( Delafield-Butt and Gangopadhyay, 2013 ; Ciaunica et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: The Question Of Sequence ─ Evolutionary and Developmentalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental causation: an evolutionary perspective

Lacalli

2024

Front. Psychol.

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The relationship between consciousness and individual agency is examined from a bottom-up evolutionary perspective, an approach somewhat different from other ways of dealing with the issue, but one relevant to the question of animal consciousness. Two ways are identified that would decouple the two, allowing consciousness of a limited kind to exist without agency: (1) reflex pathways that incorporate conscious sensations as an intrinsic component (InCs), and (2) reflexes that are consciously conditioned and dependent on synaptic plasticity but not memory (CCRs). Whether InCs and CCRs exist as more than hypothetical constructs is not clear, and InCs are in any case limited to theories where consciousness depends directly on EM field-based effects. Consciousness with agency, as we experience it, then belongs in a third category that allows for deliberate choice of alternative actions (DCs), where the key difference between this and CCR-level pathways is that DCs require access to explicit memory systems whereas CCRs do not. CCRs are nevertheless useful from a heuristic standpoint as a conceptual model for how conscious inputs could act to refine routine behaviors while allowing evolution to optimize phenomenal experience (i.e., qualia) in the absence of individual agency, a somewhat counterintuitive result. However, so long as CCRs are not a required precondition for the evolution of memory-dependent DC-level processes, the later could have evolved first. If so, the adaptive benefit of consciousness when it first evolved may be linked as much to the role it plays in encoding memories as to any other function. The possibility that CCRs are more than a theoretical construct, and have played a role in the evolution of consciousness, argues against theories of consciousness focussed exclusively on higher-order functions as the appropriate way to deal with consciousness as it first evolved, as it develops in the early postnatal period of life, or with the conscious experiences of animals other than ourselves. An evolutionary perspective also resolves the problem of free will, that it is best treated as a property of a species rather than the individuals belonging to that species whereas, in contrast, agency is an attribute of individuals.

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“…However, how they develop is almost unknown. Research on the developmental aspects of consciousness has increased recently, focusing primarily on the origins of consciousness in fetuses and newborns ( Bayne et al, 2023 ). However, research on the developmental changes afterwards is lacking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of emergent processes and threshold of consciousness with levels of processing

Watanabe,

Moriguchi

2024

Front. Psychol.

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IntroductionThe transition of experience from unconscious to conscious, the emergent process, is a crucial topic in consciousness studies. Three frameworks exist to explain the process: (1) consciousness arises in an all-or-none manner; (2) consciousness arises gradually; (3) consciousness arises either all at once or gradually, depending on the level of stimulus processing (low- vs. high-level). However, the development of emergent processes of consciousness remains unclear. This study examines the development of emergent processes of consciousness based on the level of stimulus processing framework.MethodsNinety-nine children (5–12 year-olds) and adults participated in two online discrimination tasks. These tasks involved color discrimination as lower-level processing and number magnitude discrimination as higher-level processing, as well as backward masking with stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) varying from 16.7 to 266.7 ms. We measured objective discrimination accuracy and used a 4-scale Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) to assess subjective awareness. We fit the data to a four-parameter nonlinear function to estimate the center of the slope (threshold) and the range of the slope (gradualness, the measure of emergent process of consciousness) of the model.ResultsThe results showed the threshold of objective discrimination was significantly higher in 5–6 year-olds than in 7–12 year-olds, but not of subjective awareness. The emergent process of objective discrimination in the number task was more gradual than in the color task.DiscussionThe findings suggest that the thresholds of subjective awareness in 5–6 year-olds and objective discrimination in 7–9 year-olds are similar to those in adults. Moreover, the emergent processes of subjective awareness and objective discrimination in 5–6 year-olds are also similar to those in adults. Our results support the level of processing hypothesis but suggest that its effects may differ across developmental stages.

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Consciousness in the cradle: on the emergence of infant experience

Cited by 37 publications

References 137 publications

A construct-first approach to consciousness science

A construct-first approach to consciousness science

Mental causation: an evolutionary perspective

Development of emergent processes and threshold of consciousness with levels of processing

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