Consciousness Jan Lauwereyns, Professor

The hard problem Daniel C. Dennett, “Consciousness explained” The last great problem – scientists know how to think about the really big things (astronomy), and about the really small things (quantum physics), but consciousness? Descartes’ error A little man in the machine Problem of “infinite regress”

A Darwinian competition Attention as a mechanism of selection “Gatekeeper for consciousness” The attended object is the one best adapted to survive the “struggle for attention” – best adapted to the current information needs For instance, visual attention: –Choose one object among several objects in the environment –Choose for “further processing” (detailed analysis, memorisation, preparation of responses)

William James: Making way for science "Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought...It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state." (1890, p. 403)

Empirical questions How do we select information for further processing? To what types of information can we focus our attention? What can we selectively attend? To what extent can we divide our attention? Can we voluntarily decide to attend something? In which cases do things capture our attention, even if we do not want to attend them?

Cognitive approaches: Information processing, with the computer as a model

Too much information – How do we select what’s relevant? Bottleneck metaphor

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What about the old miner?

Change detection: Role of attention allocation