This paper describes a hybrid connectionist-symbolic system that implements a mechanism for consciousness. A comparison is made between the performance of the system both with and without consciousness. It is shown that the global broadcast element of consciousness does increase learning rates significantly. A description is given relating both how this effect occurs and why the effect is produ...

The concept of the unconscious plays a fundamental part in many psychological systems, although as its very name indicates it is defined more by what it is not than by what it is. And yet, the unconscious as a systematic concept is not synonymous with the non-conscious. Rather does the existence of an unconscious presuppose the existence, potential or actual, of a conscious. The movements of a ...

Understanding the division of labor between conscious processes and unconscious ones is central to our understanding of the human mind. This article proposes a simple "Yes It Can" (or YIC) principle: It argues that unconscious processes can perform the same fundamental, high-level functions that conscious processes can perform. The author presents considerations of evolutionary pressures and of...

Recent studies have highlighted the role of multisensory integration as a key mechanism of self-consciousness. In particular, integration of bodily signals within the peripersonal space (PPS) underlies the experience of the self in a body we own (self-identification) and that is experienced as occupying a specific location in space (self-location), two main components of bodily self-consciousne...

UNLABELLED What aspects of neuronal activity distinguish the conscious from the unconscious brain? This has been a subject of intense interest and debate since the early days of neurophysiology. However, as any practicing anesthesiologist can attest, it is currently not possible to reliably distinguish a conscious state from an unconscious one on the basis of brain activity. Here we approach th...

As you read this chapter, various unconscious, conscious, and even metaconscious processes will interact to derive conceptual meaning from patterns of light striking your retinas. Much of this occurs below the threshold of awareness because the shapes of letters and words are processed through hierarchical levels of unconscious visual processing until they are identified as perceptual represent...