General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that a complete theory of consciousness should explain general consciousness (what makes a state conscious at all) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular phenomenal quality). We defend first-order representationalism, which argues that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to the subject for action selection, belief formation, planning, etc. We provide a neuroscientific framework for this primarily philosophical theory, according to which neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while neural correlates of specific consciousness include sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. We suggest that recent data support first-order representationalism over biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.

The SSVEP tracks attention, not consciousness, during perceptual filling-in

“…At first sight, our finding of neural activity which increases in magnitude when a target stimulus becomes invisible, appears incompatible with various theories of consciousness. For example, first-order theories of conscious perception ( Mehta and Mashour, 2013 ; Zeki, 2007 ) propose that the strength of activity within content-specific visual processing areas determines the vividness of that visual experience. Similarly, the global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT) of consciousness ( Dehaene and Naccache, 2001 ; Mashour et al, 2020 ) also considers stronger neural activation as a prerequisite to entry within the global neuronal workspace and subsequent conscious access ( van Vugt et al, 2018 ).…”

“…At first sight, our finding of neural activity which increases in magnitude when a target stimulus becomes invisible, appears incompatible with various theories of consciousness. For example, first-order theories of conscious perception (Mehta & Mashour, 2013;Zeki, 2007) propose that the strength of activity within contentspecific visual processing areas determines the vividness of that visual experience. Currently, however, the exact mechanisms of SSVEP generation are not well understood (Kawashima, Li, Chen, Vickery, & Morley, 2020;Kim et al, 2017;Norcia et al, 2015;Notbohm, Kurths, & Herrmann, 2016;Rager & Singer, 1998;Salelkar & Ray, 2020), and future studies will be necessary to clarify their input.…”

Neurobiology of Consciousness: Current Research and Perspectives

“…According to the authors the theory is philosophical but it is able to explain both general consciousness (what makes a particular state conscious in general) and specific consciousness (phenomenal quality of a conscious state). They suggest the existence of neural correlates of general consciousness (prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei) and specific consciousness (sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei), providing experimental data supporting the first-order representationalism theory [79]. Higher-order theories assume that conscious awareness depends on higher-order mental representations (representing oneself as being in particular mental states).…”

A neural representation of invisibility: when stimulus-specific neural activity negatively correlates with conscious experience

“…By demonstrating that visibility negatively correlates with object-specific neural responses, while positively correlating with our neural measure of attention (reduced alpha-amplitude), our results challenge contemporary theories of conscious perception. For example, first-order theories of conscious perception 29,30 propose that the strength of activity within content-specific visual processing areas determines the vividness of that experience in conscious vision. Our results challenge this account, as stimulus-specific neural activity positively correlated with subjective invisibility .…”