A REVIEW ON DISSOCIATIVE PERSPECTIVE OF ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Purpose of the study: To answer the two existing controversies regarding attention and consciousness as brain processes. 1) Can one be aware of objects or events without attending to it? 2) Can one attend to objects or events without being aware of it? And also how top-down attention and awareness have opposing functions. Methodology: This article is a systematic review of the relationship between visual attention and awareness. An extensive elaborate study on concepts relating to attention and consciousness dissociation has been done. In this article we also narrow it down to experimental design that requires independent manipulation of each. Which include top-down attention and awareness aspect of consciousness? Main Findings: Many researches have been put forward supporting the independent nature of attention from awareness using sophisticated experimental and physiological shreds of evidence. On the other hand, some researches still stick to the contemporary common-sense notion of no awareness no attention. Our evaluation suggests an independent nature of attention and awareness. Application: This article intends to give a clear perspective of the ongoing debate on the relationship between attention and consciousness. Simplification of both umbrella terms will give basis for building more empirical evidence. Novelty: Further, this article put forward studies on both sides of debate aiming to bridge the gap to get a conclusive outlook in the future

Against the View that Consciousness and Attention are Fully Dissociable

In this paper, I will try to show that the idea that there can be consciousness without some form of attention, and high-level top-down attention without consciousness, originates from a failure to notice the varieties of forms that top-down attention and consciousness can assume. I will present evidence that: there are various forms of attention and consciousness; not all forms of attention produce the same kind of consciousness; not all forms of consciousness are produced by the same kind of attention; there can be low-level attention (or preliminary attention), whether of an endogenous or exogenous kind, without consciousness; attention cannot be considered the same thing as consciousness

Consciosusness in Cognitive Architectures. A Principled Analysis of RCS, Soar and ACT-R

This report analyses the aplicability of the principles of consciousness developed in the ASys project to three of the most relevant cognitive architectures. This is done in relation to their aplicability to build integrated control systems and studying their support for general mechanisms of real-time consciousness.\ud To analyse these architectures the ASys Framework is employed. This is a conceptual framework based on an extension for cognitive autonomous systems of the General Systems Theory (GST).\ud A general qualitative evaluation criteria for cognitive architectures is established based upon: a) requirements for a cognitive architecture, b) the theoretical framework based on the GST and c) core design principles for integrated cognitive conscious control systems

Inteligência artificial e consciência fenoménica : quão perto estamos de máquinas conscientes?

A consciência é um fenómeno mal compreendido de sistemas biológicos com uma certa complexidade, e há quem sustente a possibilidade de poder vir a ser uma propriedade de determinados organismos artificiais. Alguns autores acreditam que pode emergir do substracto físico, ser uma ilusão ou um mero epifenómeno pelo que, teoricamente, nada obsta a que possa ser instanciada, uma vez compreendidos os mecanismos que a fazem surgir. Para outros, entre os quais me incluo, a instanciação da consciência em organismos artificiais não é possível, uns porque a consideram irredutível ao físico, outros porque a situam em planos transcendentais. Neste trabalho, para além de considerações gerais destinadas a situar o assunto, procuro abordar particularmente o conceito de consciência fenoménica, o chamado “problema duro”, o problema de saber como é que certas actividades neuronais aparecem internamente como experiência subjectiva, como qualia, à luz de diferentes teorias oriundas de vários campos da ciência. Para além das referências às principais teorias metafísicas, discuto com algum pormenor as mais relevantes teorias específicas da consciência, analiso modelos e implementações propostas pela Inteligência Artificial (IA) e pela Consciência Artificial (CA)1, discuto até que ponto se avançou, ou não, na simulação e na instanciação da consciência em organismos artificiais, e quais as principais objecções à sua instanciação e caracterização. Por fim são extraídas algumas conclusões que tentam responder à questão suscitada no título, partindo da ideia de que a consciência fenoménica não é processamento de informação, de uma intuição a priori2 de que não é uma propriedade emergente do substracto físico, e que talvez só seja possível em determinados organismos biológicos.Consciousness is a poorly understood phenomenon of both more and less complex biological systems, and there are those who defend the possibility that it may also become a property of certain artificial organisms. Some authors believe that consciousness can arise from the physical substrate, be an illusion or a mere epiphenomenon, so theoretically nothing prevents it from being implemented once the mechanisms that make it emerge are understood. For others, myself included, the implementation of consciousness in artificial organisms is not possible, either because it is considered to be irreducible to the physical, or because it is situated in transcendental order. In this work, in addition to general considerations aimed at placing the subject, I particularly seek to address the concept of phenomenic consciousness, the so-called "hard problem," the problem of how, in the light of different theories from various fields of science, certain neural activities appear internally as subjective experience, or qualia. In addition to references to the main metaphysical theories, I discuss in some detail the most relevant specific theories of consciousness, analyze models and implementations proposed by Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Consciousness, and discuss to what extent progress has been made in the simulation and instantiation of consciousness in artificial organisms, and what are the main objections to its instantiation and characterization. Finally, some conclusions are drawn in an attempt to answer the question raised in the title, starting from the idea that phenomenic consciousness is not a processing of information, and from an a priori intuition that it is not an emergent property of the physical substrate, and that perhaps it is only possible in certain biological organisms