Recent evidence that attention is necessary, but not sufficient, for conscious perception

Abstract

Early descriptions of attention in the psychological literature highlighted its interdependence with conscious awareness. As the study of attention developed, consciousness and attention began to be considered separable phenomena, experimentally and theoretically. In recent years, an energetic debate has developed concerning the extent to which the two phenomena are related. One school of thought considers the two to be doubly dissociable, whereas the other considers them to be necessarily linked. In this review, we highlight experimental findings from the last 5 years that contribute to the leading consensus view: attention is necessary, but not sufficient, for conscious perception. We review studies that show attention operating in conjunction with unconscious information, and other evidence linking attention necessarily to conscious perception. By drawing upon evidence that attention comprises many cognitive and neural processes, we argue that by studying how different forms of attention are related to conscious perception, it is possible to gain new insights about the neural states or processes that are necessary for conscious perception to occur.

The self and conscious experience

“…Second, the debate is still open about whether attention is really necessary for CE (see, for example, Maier and Tsuchiya, 2021). However, as already observed by various scholars (Srinivasan, 2008;Kouider et al, 2010;Marchetti, 2012b;Pitts et al, 2018;Munévar, 2020;Noah and Mangun, 2020), the claim that attention is not necessary for CE seems to result from a wrong interpretation of the experimental data, which originated from not having considered the various forms and levels that attention (e.g., bottom-up, top-down, focused, and diffused) and CE (e.g., anoetic, noetic, and autonoetic) can assume (e.g., not all forms of attention produce the same kind of CE, and not all forms of CE are produced by the same kind of attention; there can be kinds of CE with no top-down attention but with bottom-up attention; there can be kinds of CE in the absence of 6 However, it should be noted that this field of research is not immune to controversy. See, for example, Fekete et al (2018) and Keitel et al (2022) a What primarily distinguishes CE from other phenomena is its phenomenal aspect, that is, the what-it-is-like for an agent to experience something (Nagel, 1974).…”

The why of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: Its main functions and the mechanisms underpinning it

“…Some scholars ( Lamme, 2003 ; Koch and Tsuchiya, 2006 ; van Boxtel et al, 2010 ; Bachman, 2011 ) have gone so far as to claim that there can also be consciousness without attention. However, as highlighted by various scholars ( Srinivasan, 2008 ; Kouider et al, 2010 ; Marchetti, 2012 ; Pitts et al, 2018 ; Munévar, 2020 ; Noah and Mangun, 2020 ), this claim seems to result from a wrong interpretation of the experimental data, which originated from not having considered the various forms and levels that attention ( Nakayama and Mackeben, 1989 ; La Berge, 1995 ; Lavie, 1995 ; Pashler, 1998 ; Treisman, 2006 ; Demeyere and Humphreys, 2007 ; Koivisto et al, 2009 ; Alvarez, 2011 ; Chun et al, 2011 ; Tamber-Rosenau and Marois, 2016 ; Simione et al, 2019 ) and consciousness ( Tulving, 1985 ; Edelman, 1989 ; Iwasaki, 1993 ; Bartolomeo, 2008 ; Vandekerckhove and Panksepp, 2009 ; Northoff, 2013 ; Northoff and Lamme, 2020 ) can assume. In fact, not all forms of attention produce the same kind of consciousness, and not all forms of consciousness are produced by the same kind of attention; there can be kinds of conscious experience with no top–down attention but with bottom-up attention; there can be kinds of conscious experience in the absence of a focal form of top–down attention but in the presence of a diffused form of top–down attention.…”

Assessing the commensurability of theories of consciousness: on the usefulness of common denominators in differentiating, integrating and testing hypotheses

“…The position of AIT also leans towards the 'phenomenal' side, to the extent that proponents speak of 'sentience' or having 'qualia' (Friston et al, 2020). Also, GNWT seems to equate consciousness with cognition, information-pooling and executive control, while some empirical findings suggest that this equation is not absolute: it is arguably possible to have cognitive phenomena without corresponding conscious perception, as it has been argued that consciousness can be dissociated from at least some forms of attention (Koch & Tsuchiya, 2012) (but see: (Marchetti, 2012;Noah & Mangun, 2020)). According to (Panagiotaropoulos, Wang, & Dehaene, 2020) GNWT leaves no room for the 'qualia' of experience, in line with Dehaene & Naccache, 2001) statement that "this global availability of information ( …) is what we subjectively experience as a conscious state".…”