A sweep through cognitive science - conscious awareness as the core concept of the sciences of the mind

The implicit consensus of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience on nested conscious awareness

Knut Jägersberg - 2014

Abstract

The dynamic perspective upon cognition taken in this review is made explicit. These basic understandings are then used to frame three taxonomies on conscious awareness, which are implied by different branches of literature from psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science. These equivalent taxonomies on the mental processes, neural correlates and emergent faculties of conscious awareness are open for empirical testing from all of these disciplines and cross-validation. A generic pattern of conscious awareness is concluded, which is manifested in each taxonomy in another form. The review closes with a few exemplary categorical hypotheses to show how the taxonomies (especially the neural) can be tested. The review provides an integrated and internally consistent language to relate the fundamental concepts of the sciences of the mind to each other.

Keywords:

Awareness, conscious awareness, feedforeward processing, recurrent processing, global neuronal workspace, phenomenal conscious, access conscious, focus of attention, working memory, long-term memory, long-term working memory, short-term working memory, dynamical cognitive science, modularity

1. Introduction

There has been a great deal of discussion how to distinguish and relate elementary psychological concepts to each other. Debates on the nature of working memory (Shah & Miyake, 1999), attention (Oberauer, 2002), awareness (Lamme, 2003) or conscious awareness (Dehaene et al., 2006) remain unresolved. Some time ago, several hypotheses on the neural correlate of conscious awareness have been made (Lamme, 2006; Cohen & Dennett, 2011), especially the distinction between phenomenal and access conscious awareness has captured interest of the scientific community (see Trapp, Schroll, & Hamker, 2012).

In this literature review, three independently evolving, implicit taxonomies on conscious awareness and the basic architecture of the human mind are presented. The merit of this concurrent perspective on the human mind is, that it can be tested and cross-validated by multi-disciplinary methodologies from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. These taxonomies show a perspective on consciousness, which resolves the conflict between the perspective of understanding conscious awareness as global access (Dehaene et al., 2006) or as phenomenal awareness without reportability (Lamme, 2006).

1. A dynamic perspective on cognition - Modes of cognition and modularity

This review contextualizes conscious processes from a dynamic perspective on cognitive science (Van Gelder, 1995, 1998). From this perspective, cognition is understood as a dynamical system, described as pattern of change or time-evolution. Dynamical accounts are gaining popularity (see Beer, 2000) and are nowadays merging with perspectives of situated cognition in fruitful ways (Chemero, 2013).

A bridge between representationalism and dynamic perspectives – Dynamic modularity

The review presents qualitatively different yet nested patterns of changes within cognition, which are scattered throughout the literature but form a logically consistent taxonomy of dynamic cognition. A bridge between representationalism and dynamic accounts is needed to provide a new dynamic language to ‘sponge up’ all the rich findings form representationalist accounts on the mind. A bridge can be realized by a concept of modularity of mind, which is somewhat more relaxed than the one purposed by Fodor (1983).

Fodor lists nine properties of modular systems, two of them have been identified as the most important: Domain-specifity (Coltheart, 1999) and information encapsulation or cognitive impenetrability, which means isolation of the process from cognitive influence and access (Pylyshyn, 1999). Both properties are not compatible with dynamic cognitivism if taken without some moderation, because on the ultimate ground, definite domain-specifity may indicate a categorical from of symbolic-representationalism and information encapsulation as a fixed processing boundary, whereas dynamic cognitivism understands cognitive systems as “not inherently representational” (van Gelder, 1998) and as “undergoing change all the time” (van Gelder, 1995).

A more relaxed account upon the nature of modularity is given by Bechtel (2008): Modules are not absolutely encapsulated, truly isolatable components of the mind, but a measure to segregate cognitive mechanisms from each other on the basis of permeable boundaries. Such a conception of modularity is consistent with dynamic systems theory, because the permeable boundaries of the segregation allow change of the overall system of modules over time and does not assign strict state fixedness to the “organized  interaction  of  those  parts.” (van Gelder, 1995) or all-time validity to the modular theory. In other words, such a perspective upon modularity assigns flexibility to the inclusiveness and organization of the minds underlying modules. A dynamic perspective upon modularity is thus likely to assign the term module to loosely domain-specific (Bechtel states modules have no full functional responsibility) and permeably bounded (not encapsulated) processes. A dynamic modularity perspective assigns time-limited or interval-framed validity to modular theories of mind, the modularity becomes a dynamic heuristic of the mind.

So the bridge to orthodox representationalim is to take up its rich findings from compositional accounts on the mind (with insights on iconic, semantic, auditive, etc. mental representations) in a language, which makes them part of a dynamic setup of modules, which are redefined from moment to moment. The dynamic account presented here is ‘enfleshed’ by assigning an evolutionary definition to the modules, in a form like this: For example, there is / are module(s) for semantic processing, which is / are permeably bounded from all other modules, like modules for visual perception. The trick is to understand cognition within a language, which indicates the mental process without encapsulation. For example, a scenery of a car driving across the street is instantiated in the cognitive agent by a system of loose modules for motion, audition and vision, all of which have loose compositions of modules to process aspects of motion like direction or speed. A crucial point here is that the notion of module becomes dynamically meaningless, if the module does not refer to a change throughout time. If one would seek to enforce depiction of a set of a distinct set of modules instantiating a cognitive agent at one point in time, one would have to add, that all modules are processing change biased towards domain-specificity. The car scenery is instantiated by a system of modules, where some are biased towards processing motion changes and others are biased towards processing auditive changes.  

Modules can operate in a number of nested modes. These modes describe the realization of conscious processing. It is best to understand conscious processing as something, which may occur in isolated modules as well as in an orchestra of modules, instantiating ‘higher consciousness’. ‘Consciousness’ is well understood as a generic pattern, which may seize the mind on several levels. The processing mode becomes ‘more’ conscious, the more abstract or high level the mental architecture is, which is seized by the pattern.

2. An implicit taxonomy in psychology and cognitive neuroscience on the dynamical systems of the mind

The question then is, what are the basic processing modes or patterns of change of the dynamically modular mind and brain? Scattered throughout the literature from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, two concurrent dynamic systems taxonomies are described, although only implicitly. The taxonomy is depicted in table 1.

Here, their relationship is not discussed in detail. The main point instead is, that throughout two branches of literature, both dealing with the topic of consciousness from very different angles, times and methodologies, imply congruent taxonomies. The question is, if such concurrence is a coincidence.

However, if one would define consciousness as recurrent processing as Lamme did (2006) (which means it would have to be the neural substrate of consciousness), then this article would logically describe the neural substrates of all higher modes of conscious processing, because they are just extensions of Lammes basic idea.

Table 1. Testable taxonomies of the mind

2. Psychological taxonomy of the dynamical systems of the mind

Figure 1. Awareness as a nested dynamic process

What is the most basic mode of dynamic cognition? Dynamic cognition is the instantiation of all dynamical systems, which are responsible of the cognitive performances of a cognitive agent (van Gelder, 1998). This means, that a basic mode of dynamic cognition must apply to all kinds of cognitive performances. The basic mode must be for dynamic systems, which apply to all mental modi on all levels, be they perceptive or reflective.

The basic concept of a dynamical account of the mind must be very broad, the only anchor required by the definition of van Gelder (1998) is bounding to a cognitive agent. Awareness is such a concept, awareness can be defined as “first-person subjective experience” (Galin, 1994). As shall be shown, awareness is a concept, which is implied in psychological terminology on all levels of mental processing.

The here presented psychological taxonomy provides an integrated perspective on the embedded processes model of working memory by Cowan (1999) and its extensions by Oberauer (2002) and their relations to the work of Shallice and Burgess (1996) and Shallice (2004) on executive functions. The new perspective becomes fluently integrative by ‘spicing’ the psychological terminology with very few, but core philosophical ideas on consciousness. These core ideas help to make the psychological taxonomy more elegant, being set up from a few basic terms, which all build upon another and refer to established psychological constructs.  The taxonomy and its core definitions is depicted in table 2.

Table 2. Key definitions of the psychological taxonomy of conscious awareness

1. Pre-cognition or unawareness

Logically speaking, the absence of a first person experience in the presence of a cognitive agent maybe called unawareness. Environmental stimulation and endogenous cognition do not affect all the modules, which are present in a cognitive agent, some modules are ‘at rest’. Modules can be understood as cranial anticipations, one of a cognitive, perceptual or behavioral response, which is adaptive to the demands of the environment. Modules, which are not engaged in current cognition are still in a biochemical processing mode, as synaptic structure etc. is an ongoing ‘construction site’. As this molecular processing mode has the task to anticipate adaptive cognitions realized in the future, it maybe called a pre-cognitive mode of processing. Pre-cognition is the domain of biological psychology and behavioral neuroscience. All processing modes involving some kind of awareness are the domain of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Unawareness refers to the established idea of the non-activated ‘part’ of long-term memory, as described by Cowan (1999) and Oberauer (2002), pre-cognition hints to the idea, that these ‘parts’ can be activated later on. Precognition also indicates, that the long-term memory of a cognitive agent is not blank, cognitive agents must support information-time-transcendence. Removing the brain disintegrates precognition and the cognitive agent. An empty scalp has no potential for awareness and hence no unawareness.

2. Subliminal cognition or unconscious awareness

There are first person experiences, which are below the threshold of conscious awareness, these can be referred to as subliminal cognition (Naccache, 2008). Traditionally, subliminal processing was associated with perceptive processes only (Kihlstrom, 1987), but recently, subliminal influences on high-level functions as cognitive control have been suggested  as well (Kunde, Reuss, & Kiesel, 2012), widening the stage of subliminal processing from perception to cognition. In the current taxonomy, with awareness as basic process, it makes sense to call subliminal cognition a form of unconscious awareness.

3. P-conscious awareness

 “mental activity is unconscious in the strict sense of being inaccessible to phenomenal awareness under any circumstances”, this citation of Kihlstrom (1987, p.1447) implies to define consciousness by the presence of phenomenal awareness. In fact, Chalmers (1996) suggests that “a mental state is conscious if it has a qualitative feel —an associated quality of experience.” Block (2011) suggests to call phenomenal consciousness “what  it  is  like  for  a  subject  to  have  an  experience” or “the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state” (Block, 1995, p.1). Block (2007) also suggested to think of phenomenal consciousness as a processing mode of Fodor’s modules. In more dynamic cognitivist words, a module is in a phenomenally conscious processing mode, when its dynamic systems instantiate a qualia or a raw experience. To reconcile, a first person experience with qualia is a phenomenal awareness, which equates to p-conscious awareness, if one takes qualia as key ingredient of consciousness as Chalmers (1996) does.

P-conscious awareness has meaning equivalence with what Cowan (1999) and Oberauer (2002) refer to as unattended activated parts of long-term memory. P-consciousness was also discussed directly in the cognitive sciences from a computationalist point of view (Trapp, Schroll, & Hamker, 2012).

P-conscious awareness is mostly feed by arousal from the modalities, which is why it corresponds to impulsive, bottom-up processing. P-‘consciousness’ overlaps largely with perceptual ‘consciousness’ (Block, 2011), but is not restricted to it.

4. A-conscious awareness

 “A representation is A-conscious if it is broadcast for free use in reasoning and for direct “rational” control of action (including reporting)” (Block, 1995, p. 5) or if there is “availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action” (Block, 1995, p.1). A definition of access consciousness assuming less representationalism was proposed by Chalmers (1997): “direct availability for global control”. Modules in an accessible processing mode can be recruited to control other accessible modules.  Reconciling the permeable boundaries of modules, modules controlling other modules means a modular meltdown or ‘modularization’ on a higher level. It is, as if accessible p-conscious modules become ‘aware’ of each other, a higher order consciousness is realized. Hence, information integration must be higher in a-conscious awareness then in p-conscious awareness. A first person experience with qualia is in a-conscious awareness, when the experience is accessible for other experiences or if there is integrated experience of qualia on qualia. Example: Feeling how a football player feels whilst feeling how his foot is missing the ball whilst watching the player trying to hit a goal in an important game. A-conscious awareness refers to an equivalent construct as the region of direct access of Oberauer (2002) and the mechanisms surrounding the region of direct access. Modules in a-conscious awareness are reactivated modules, described as maintenance of items in working memory by recirculation of the focus of attention (Cowan, 1999). A-consciousness was recently discussed in the cognitive sciences from a computationalist point of view, just as p-consciousness (Trapp, Schroll, & Hamker, 2012).

A-conscious awareness refers to automatic processes, which are influenced significantly by both bottom-up and top-down processing.

5. Focal conscious awareness or executive conscious awareness

Of all modules in a-conscious mode, one can be selected to be the focal conscious awareness. It goes by the name central attention (Anderson, 2005) or top-down controlled attention (Buschmann & Miller, 2007). Oberauer (2002) describes it as the item in the focus of attention. An integrated first person experience with qualia on qualia is in the focus of attention, if it is accessed by the supervisory attentional system (Shallice and Burgess, 1996). However, since this system works by several modules as well (Shallice, 2004), the focus of conscious awareness may be described as the result of first person experience of qualia(s) selecting which qualia shall be integrated next (or maintained) in the current pool of qualia(s). In short, it is the experience of the result of cognitive control (Kunde, Reuss, & Kiesel, 2012). SAS modules become ‘aware’ of a-conscious modules and bias the selection of the future pool of a-conscious modules. Example: Realizing that for grabbing the remote-control to your right, you have to get rid of the chips in your right hand.

The executive functioning of the mind represents an even higher degree of information integration or an even higher, executive (e-)conscious awareness or controlled processing. It makes sense to call it commonsense (c-)conscious awareness as well, as it corresponds to the human intuitive understanding of what conscious awareness is (conscious = reportable). However, e-conscious awareness refers to a large class of high-level conscious processes, more than implied by the reportability criterion.

6. Metacognitive conscious awareness

The focus of conscious awareness may as well be placed on e-conscious awareness itself, resulting in a metacognitive (m-)conscious awareness, which is the conscious experience of cognitive control or reflective processing. It is a high-level conscious awareness, as the cognitive agent has become aware of the reasons of his or her train of thoughts. E-conscious awareness and m-conscious awareness may often but not always co-occur (see Kunde, Reuss, & Kiesel, 2012). Example: Realizing that you got rid of the chips in your right hand to grab the remote-control to your right. To your surprise, your favorite show is on, but with a commercial embedded into the plot.

M-conscious awareness is suggested as a mere representative for all other highest modes, i.e. self (s-)conscious awareness, which can be discussed somewhere else. M-conscious awareness is to demonstrate the gist of the generic pattern of conscious processing, which may penetrate all aspects of (cortical) mental life.

3. Cognitive neuroscience taxonomy of the dynamical systems of the brain

One of several alternative neural correlates of consciousness (see Lamme, 2006, Dehaene & Changeux, 2003, Dehaene et al., 2006, Cohen & Dennett, 2011, Crick & Koch, 1990, John, 2001, Hameroff, & Penrose, 1996) is the neural stance taken by Lamme (2006). This review is to show, that a merged perspective of Lamme (2006) and Dehaene et al. (2006) offers a testable neural equivalent of the taxonomy implied within psychological literature. This independent neural taxonomy shares several commonalities with aboves account (i.e. distinguishes conscious awareness from top-down attention and describes a generic pattern of consciousness).

7. Feedforward processing and unconscious awareness

Lamme & Roelfsema (2000) suggested to map the conscious-unconscious dichotomy of cognitive processes on the neural activation patterns of feedforward (unconscious) and recurrent (conscious) processing. This neural dichotomy of processing modes makes consciousness independent from other cognitive functions (Lamme, 2006) or cortical module in the sense, that no single cognitive function / cortical module defines what conscious awareness is. From this perspective, any cortical location may be seized by unconscious, feedforeward processing or conscious, recurrent processing.

The feedforward processing mode has been called zombie mode of cognition (Crick & Koch, 2003), hence it makes sense to think of it as unconscious awareness. Dehaene et al., 2006 call it subliminal processing and suggest to distinguish attended and unattended subliminal processing. They suggest, that only attended subliminal processing may exhibit strong feedforward processing and have noteworthy influence on further cognitions, so attention may be a prerequisite for an unconscious awareness with impact on further cognition.

8. Local and regional recurrent processing and p-conscious awareness

Recurrent processing is suggested to be the neural correlate or even substrate of conscious processing, especially of p-conscious awareness (Lamme, 2006). A key communality between aboves taxonomy and the neural taxonomy is, that consciousness can be understood as a generic pattern in both languages. Conscious recurrent interaction patterns penetrate all levels of neural conscious experience, just as the concept of qualia can be found on all levels of  psychological conscious experience.

Recurrent interactions are also called feedback processing, re-entrant processing or resonant processing and are also hypothesized to be necessary for conscious experience elsewhere (Lamme & Roelfsema, 2000; Lamme (2003); Pascual-Leone & Walsh, 2001; Dehaene et al., 2006). Recurrent processing adds to the feedforward sweep a positive feedback loop (Crick & Koch, 2003) by a ‘backwards’ sweep. Lamme (2006) suggests, that recurrent processing, regardless on global availability of the experience, involves phenomenality, rendering recurrent interactions as a neural correlate of p-conscious awareness. P-conscious awareness is understood as preconscious by Dehaene et al. (2006), who favor global access as key ingredient of consciousness. In this review, an integrative perspective upon both accounts is shown, one arguing for consciousness as being a generic pattern of cognition, expressed on different levels of the architecture of the cognitive systems. A compromise label for p-conscious may thus be: pre-a-conscious.

There is no reason to assume, that recurrent interactions without global availability must be constrained to ‘small locations’. One may speak of local to regional recurrency, but a more precise language should focus on modular then area-bound seizure of the cortex by recurrency. Recurrent interactions are conceivable without global availability not only for singular modules (local) but also for interacting modules (regional). Whereas recurrent interactions in ‘isolated’ modules would refer to fairly limited and domain specific or singular p-conscious awareness, recurrent interactions between modules should mean a more integrated p-conscious awareness. The extend of automatic processing maybe an issue here and expertise in a certain skill may yield sophisticated automatisms (i.e. skilled blitz chess players do not even attend to how their arms move the figures according to their strategies, even selecting the individual position of each figure is automatized).

9. Global recurrent processing, long-distance reverberation and a-conscious awareness

However, recurrent interactions without global availability maybe very likely to be local. Even in daily life, routines and skilled actions need constant adaptation to slightly different circumstances. Environments, which ask for completely habitual responses, where interacting modules or the autopilot maybe left alone, are not omnipresent, they are actually quite unlikely, even if strived for. So whenever a limited automation of a process comes about, it is likely to stall, because the necessary skill is not trained enough. Automatic integrated modular recurrency maybe an issue of extensive training or overlearning. Expertise for anything is not viable.

However, integrated modular recurrency may also be induced by a top-down attentional control network of neurons (Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun, 2009) as is the case in voluntary re-orienting of attention. In this respect, Dehaene & Changeux (2003) and Dehaene et al. (2006) mention the involvement of a global neuronal workspace. The global neuronal workspace may be interpreted as a dynamically changing set of modules, which are available for access by the top-down attentional control network of neurons (consequence: global availability, i.e. reportability). The attentional control network neurons can dynamically mobilize any cortical module by top-down amplification (Dehaene & Changeux, 2003). However, diverging from the ideas of Dehaene & Changeux (2003) and integrating Lammes (2006) ideas, one may understand the global neuronal workspace not as a distinct set of workspace neurons (open for homunculus debates) but instead as a set of modules in integrated inter-modular recurrency, which is globally available. Global availability for western mindsets (imprintings by the era of Aufklärung) means, that new inter-modular recurrencies are established by the attentional control network neurons. Eastern mindsets maybe more open for global availability emergent from p-conscious modules as well, as seen in artful displays of Zen-masters, who can perform extremely skilled action without top-down attention (see Herrigel, 1989). The wholesome, non-judgmental state of just being in the moment without focus may relate to pure p-conscious processing or a-conscious processing without accessing something.

In support of a view of global neuronal workspace as dynamically changing (or not distinctive) set of neurons is the observation, that people suffering from some forms of aphasia, where global availability of speech producing modules is diminished, can learn to regain some access to speech production modules by singing. This suggests, that the ‘usual’ set of workspace neurons can be altered, here neurons involved in melodic processing are recruited to regain access to speech production modules.

See that the neural generic pattern of conscious experience (recurrency) has ‘emission’ even into the higher levels of conscious experience, which humans intuitively label as conscious (i.e. reportable experience): Global recurrent processing means recurrent processing, which is part of the global neuronal workspace. Again a modular, non-locationalist language for global recurrent processing is desirable. (Integrated inter-)modular recurrency, which is dynamically mobilized in the global neuronal workspace, expresses what Dehaene et al. (2006) call p-consciousness with the potential for conscious access. A more elegant expression is to label the processing mode of these modules simply as ‘access-conscious’. The neural pattern which makes modules globally available maybe temporary long-distance reverberations, after a p-conscious module was placed in the focus of attention.

The more integrated or the more inter-modular recurrency there is in the global neuronal workspace, the more unified the reportable experience is. For example, one may attentively listen to a music track and feel how the mood of the track is communicated by the lyrics, the intonation of the singer and the ‘intonation’ of the music instruments. Less integration may express itself in a set of reportable information, which is unrelated to each other, or better, where no relationship has been established yet. For example, one may maintain 4 different digits in global neuronal workspace without any relationship (no integration) or discover, that they are for example all prime numbers. Setting up integrated intermodular recurrency maybe related to the process of chunking and mnemonic strategies to ‘trick’ working memory capacity limits (Cowan, 2001).  

10. Top-down amplification, dynamic mobilization and focal conscious awareness

The process of mobilization of a module into the focus of conscious awareness, namely top-down amplification, may have the following neuronal activity pattern: The top-down attentional control network of neurons (Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun, 2009) is firing (feedforward or recurrent style, but properly recurrent in individuals without attentional deficits), at least partially. At least one of the neural correlates of the SAS modules (Shallice, 2004) fires along cortical long-distance connections to cortical modules in a-conscious mode, resulting in top-down amplification. The recipient a-conscious cortical module is now in an online recurrent interaction with the top-down attentional control network. The focus is jumpy, the mobilization into e-conscious awareness is dynamic, this results in the long-distance reverberation (Dehaene et al., 2006) necessary for global availability in a-conscious awareness.

Note that the long-distance connections may have a strong relationship to long-term memory, so that p-conscious or even unaware modules can be accessed voluntarily. People can ‘recall’ some memories voluntarily. These modules, which are at rest, maybe described to be in a pre-cognitive modus, long-term memory maybe called pre-cognition from a dynamic cognitivist perspective. Pre-cognition is to indicate the anticipatory preparation of the brain for learned environmental stimulations and responses. For example, precognition is the cranial basis, which lets an experienced chess player understand the course of the game by mere intuition. Precognition is in the brain, far from being perfect and nothing metaphysical. However, even actively maintained synaptic structure is in an ongoing biochemical flux, which forbids to understand human long-term memory as a storehouse. The brains biochemical processing mode of precognitive processing helps to avoid representationalist terms such as encoding and decoding something into or from a place called memory. However, precognition may work to recollect memory almost without change. Remembering something may sometimes look like retrieving some fixed representation from memory. But it is not, strictly speaking, the brain is no hard-drive, with a structure like a chain of zeros and ones, which transcends time. However, active biochemical processes for long-term memory by the brain result in a dynamic structure, which is almost equivalent to a fixed, time transcending structure. But there are no stored mental representations in memory. There is precognitive processing, which affords information to transcend time as memory. Memory is not just a cranial epiphenomenon, as we know from our daily interactions with computers. Precognition is in the brain, human memory is only a by-product by the brain. For example, social learning does perpetuate human memory by equivalent but not equitable patterns of precognition, as all brains are somewhat idiosyncratic.

11. Reverberant dynamic mobilization of the top-down attentional control network of neurons and m-conscious awareness

In reflective processing, cortical modules of the top-down attentional control network are mobilized themselves into central attention. The generic neuronal pattern of m-conscious awareness should be a global recurrency, which is reverberated towards the top-down attentional control network of neurons (Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun, 2009), itself.

3. Discussion

1. Emergent mental faculties of the dynamical systems – The resultant taxonomy for all cognitive sciences

All hypothesized processing modes, mental or neural, result in epiphenomenal mental faculties. These faculties emerge from the processing modes. The processing modes are materialized by the human brain, but the emergent faculties stand next to the brain and could result from other physical setups as well, because they deal with the non-physical concept of information:  “Information is information, not matter or energy” (Wiener, 1961, p. 132).

12. Long-term memory

Cognition is arises from dormant neural activation trace-tendencies (precognition). Long-term memory is an epiphenomenon of the whole of all precognitive processes in the brain, which are the physical, primary phenomenon. The reconstructive process of rememorizing by ongoing activations being mediated by dormant neural activation trace-tendencies comes with differential activation-tendency strength. Long-term memory is information, which transcends time probabilistically by repeated information realization (reconstructive processes) mediated by the human brain. Information endures as future neural activation biases with a probability to reoccur with meaning equivalency. These biases have the probability to support active future reconstruction of neural activation patterns with meaning equivalency (so called ‘retrieval’). Long-term memory is directly related to working memory.

13. Working memory

 “… the essence of… working memory (or the part of memory that works) is that only a minute fraction of all the knowledge…. in subjects’ vast long-term memory is influencing the subjects’ behavior and thought processes at a specific instant of time. “ (Ericsson & Delaney, 1999, p.260)

Working memory is the fraction of memory realized in concurrent cognition (Cowan, 1999; Oberauer, 2002).

Working memory is an epiphenomenon of all modes of cognition or all kinds of awareness, the neural activation patterns in the brain are its physical primary phenomenon. Working memory is not only related to long-term memory, it also has counterparts to the here proposed modes of cognition. Both relationships come forth in a short-term / long-term dimension and active / passive dimension. The active / passive dimension is inspired by the work of Baars & Franklin (2003) on active working memory.

14. Long-term and short-term working memory

Ericsson & Delaney (1999) call temporarily accessible information short-term working memory (ST-WM) and contrast it from chronically accessible information, which is long-term working memory (LT-WM). Short-term working memory ‘works’ with to be created or constructed mobilzable neural pathways or novel activation patterns. Long-term working memory falls back upon to be reconstructed, largely pre-existent or resident neural pathways or dormant activation patterns.

Long-term working memory is the epiphenomenon of the routes, which link all kinds of awareness to their source precognitions. Long-term working memory links working memory to long-term memory.

15. Enactive long-term working memory and reactive long-term working memory

Enactive long-term working memory is information, with learned indirect chronic accessibility via indirect ‘retrieval’ strategies (Ritter et al., 1973) long-term memory. Reactive long-term working memory is information, with unpracticed indirect, chronic accessibility via long-term memory. Enactive LT-WM is the epiphenomenon of learned routes between precognition and awareness (i.e. playing a music instrument), reactive LT-WM is the epiphenomenon of inborn routes between precognition and awareness (i.e. vision). Enactive LT-WM comes from nurtured modules, reactive LT-WM comes from natural modules.

16. Active short-term working memory and passive short-term working memory

Active short-term working memory is information, which is temporarily directly accessible and is the epiphenomenon of the global neuronal workspace, access conscious modules, the region of direct access (Oberauer, 2002). Passive short-term working memory is information, which is temporarily indirectly accessible and is the epiphenomenon of mere phenomenal conscious modules (i.e. not yet reportable) or knowledge, which is indirectly accessible, via ‘retrieval’ structures (Oberauer, 2002).

Active ST-WM has a ‘capacity’ limit of 4 +/- 1 chunks (Cowan, 2001) or in dynamic cognitivist language, active ST-WM is the epiphenomenon of roundabout 4 modules in a-conscious mode. Passive ST-WM on the other hand, has no ‘capacity’ limit, according to Cowan (1999), the mental system can handle infinite ‘amounts’ of activation, by which he means modules in p-conscious mode. The epiphenomenon number of modules in p-conscious mode may foremost be determined by how stimulant and variant the environment is. Passive ST-WM may explain the power of incubation for problem solving and the source of aha moments.

4. Conclusion and Future research – Hypotheses on the nested dynamical mind

The here proposed taxonomies from the perspective of psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science are a step forwards for efforts in an integrated science of the mind. By combining the theories from various fields and looking for cross-disciplinary pattern congruencies, a theoretical framework on mind and consciousness is indicated, which is open for empirical testing. The taxonomies afford to make the topic of consciousness less of a metaphysical debate and more of an scientific endower. The congruent, cross-disciplinary patterns suggests, that there maybe a generic pattern of conscious awareness (see table 1), which has the power to work as a core explanatory concept for all sciences of mind. Qualia on qualia, feedback processing on feedforward sweeps or memory systems building on memory systems share a generic communality, which maybe the essence of conscious awareness: sprit, which reflects upon itself.

Future research should check, if behavioral data from experimental psychology, from neuro-imaging data from the cognitive neurosciences and especially from combined experimental designs support the taxonomies. The following pattern classes and matches are hypothesized as the outcome of the review:

Table 3. Hypothesized categorical patterns for the taxonomy on conscious awarenes

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