The higher-order theory (HOT) of consciousness has often been misunderstood by critics. Here, we clarify its position on several issues, and distinguish it from other views, such as the global workspace theory (GWT) and early sensory models (e.g., first-order local recurrency theories). For example, HOT has been criticized for overintellectualizing consciousness. We show that, while higherorder states are cognitively assembled, the requirements are in fact considerably less than often presumed. In this sense, HOT may be viewed as an intermediate position between GWT and early sensory views. We also clarify that most proponents of HOT do not stipulate consciousness as equivalent to metacognition or confidence. Furthermore, compared with other existing theories, HOT can arguably account better for complex everyday experiences, such as emotions and episodic memories. This makes HOT particularly useful as a framework for conceptualizing pathological mental states.
What Is HOT?Consciousness (see Glossary), as used here, refers to subjective experience, or what is sometimes called phenomenal consciousness [1,2], as opposed to the condition of merely being awake and alert and behaviorally responsive to external stimuli. To be phenomenally conscious is for there to be something that it is like to be the entity in question, that is, something that it is like for the entity itself [2].Subjective experience is the stuff of novels, poems, and songs, of our emotions and memories, the essence of being a human. It is hard to imagine what it would be like to not be sentient in the way we are. Unsurprisingly, then, the science of consciousness is currently a vibrant and thriving area of research. However, there is no generally accepted theory of the phenomena being studied, and the phenomena themselves often do not include many of the kinds of complex experiences that we normally have in the course of day-to-day life, such as of our emotions and memories.