Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
December 17, 2011
Jaan Aru, Talis Bachmann, Wolf Singer et al.
612 citations
Identifying the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is a major goal in neuroscience, typically pursued by comparing brain activity when a person is conscious of a stimulus versus when they are not. This review argues that such contrastive analyses are problematic because they can capture not only the true NCC but also neural prerequisites for conscious processing and consequences that follow it. Previous findings may therefore be ambiguous. The authors propose experimental strategies to isolate the NCC from these confounds, aiming to refine the contrastive approach.
The European journal of neuroscience
May 1, 2025
Wolf Singer
2 citations
The relationship between mind and matter and the nature of perception are examined from neurobiological and philosophical perspectives. Neuropsychological and neurophysiological studies are reviewed that connect neuronal processes to consciousness. The 'hard problem of consciousness'—explaining how subjective experience (qualia) arises from neuronal processes—can be alleviated if two conditions are met: perception depends on priors, and some priors are formed through interactions with immaterial realities of cultural concepts. This approach offers a coherent naturalistic explanation but does not resolve cognitive dissonance between intuitions and scientific evidence regarding matter and mind.
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
October 25, 2019
Wolf Singer
The hard problem of consciousness—explaining how subjective experience arises from material brain processes—cannot be solved by studying neural correlates alone. Instead, the problem can be addressed within a naturalistic evolutionary framework that includes both biological and socio-cultural dimensions. Perceptions, including self-perception, are constructed based on prior knowledge. Social interactions among cognitively capable agents generate immaterial social or cultural realities that become new priors. These priors shape a self-model with both material and immaterial aspects, experienced as veridical because they are implicit and not consciously accessible. Thus, the hard problem appears as a cognitive construct amenable to naturalistic explanation.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Jaan Aru, Talis Bachmann, Wolf Singer et al.
Identifying the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is considered a key step toward understanding consciousness. Typical experiments contrast conditions with and without conscious perception, but this contrast captures not only neural activity directly tied to conscious experience but also prerequisites and consequences of that perception. To isolate the true neural basis of conscious experience, researchers must disentangle the NCC from these confounding processes. This review discusses recent experimental developments and proposes new empirical approaches to more precisely isolate the neural activity underlying conscious perception.