Resolving some confusions over attention and consciousness.

Abstract

There is presently an ongoing debate about the relation between attention and consciousness. Thus debate is being fuelled by results from experimental paradigms which probe various forms of the interaction between attention and consciousness, such as the attentional blink, object-substitution masking and change blindness. We present here simulations of these three paradigms which can all be produced from a single overarching control model of attention. This model helps to suggest an explanation of consciousness as created through attention, and helps to explore the complex nature of attention. It indicates how it is possible to accommodate the relevant experimental results without needing to regard consciousness and attention as independent processes.