Attention versus consciousness

fused or independent?

pp. 43-62

in: John G. Taylor, Solving the mind-body problem by the CODAM neural model of consciousness?, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

The American neuroscientist Christof Koch, working with his group at Caltech, has spearheaded the important thesis that consciousness and attention are not as closely fused as is almost universally claimed. The usual statement is that attention to a stimulus in the external world is necessary for consciousness of that stimulus to arise in a subject. More may be needed for that consciousness to arise, but at least attention must be directed to that stimulus in order for there to be any chance of consciousness of the stimulus. This implies that consciousness is to be searched for in the interstices of attention. Koch claims that this is not the case. In particular he and his colleague Tsuchiya (Koch C, Tsuchiya N, Trends Cogn Sci 11(1):16–22, 2007) wrote that consciousness could arise in a subject without them paying attention to the relevant stimulus. This claim was based on several subtle experiments, which clearly we need to analyze in some detail in order to investigate this important claim.