topics: |  cognitive |

Michael Gazzaniga, a leader and prime mover in neuroscience, has been
editing a volume titled Cognitive Neurosciences, with the different
editions numbered III, IV, etc, and sometimes "New Cognitive
Neurosciences".   Some articles are added and dropped between 
versions, others are edited or re-titled or authorships changed.  

This compilation, from 2009, is the most updated, and also the most
voluminous.  

Many fascinating overview articles.  A great text to introduce concepts in
cognitive Science.  

77 Ned Block : Comparing the Major Theories of Consciousness

Philosopher Ned Block compares the three frameworks for theories of
consciousness that "are taken most seriously by neuroscientists":

* Consciousness is a BIOLOGICAL state of the brain

	[The idea] that consciousness is some sort of biological state
	derives from Democritus (Kirk, Raven, & Schofield, 1983) and Hobbes
	(1989), but was put in modern form in the 1950s by Place (1956),
	Smart (1959), and Feigl (1958). (See also Block, 1978; Crane, 2000;
	Lamme, 2003.) 
		Place, U. T. (1956). Is consciousness a brain process?
			Br. J. Psychol., 47, 44–50. 
		Crane, T. (2000). The origins of qualia. In T. Crane &
			S. Patterson (Eds.), History of the mind-body problem
			(pp. 169–194). New York: Routledge.
		Lamme, V. (2003). Why visual attention and awareness are
			different. Trends Cogn. Sci., 7, 12–18. 


* Global workspace perspective

	The global workspace account of consciousness was first suggested by
	Bernard Baars (1988) and has been developed in a more neural
	direction by Stanislas Dehaene, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and their
	colleagues (Dehaene, Changeux, Nacchache, Sackur, & Sergent,
	2006). The account presupposes a neural network approach in which
	there is competition among neural coalitions involving both frontal
	and sensory areas (Koch, 2004), the winning coalitions being
	conscious.


* Higher order thought (HOT) [explains consuciousness in terms of of
		higher order states].

	experience is phenomenally conscious only in virtue of another state
	that is about the experience (Armstrong, 1978; Lycan, 1996a; Byrne,
	1997; Carruthers, 2000; Byrne, 2001b; Rosenthal, 2005a). This
	perspective comes in many varieties, depending on, among other
	things, whether the monitoring state is a thought or a
	perception. The version to be discussed here says that the higher
	order state is a thought (“higher order thought” is abbreviated as
	HOT) and that a conscious experience of red consists in a
	representation of red in the visual system accompanied by a thought
	in the same subject to the effect that the subject is having the
	experience of red.

---

The comparison of these three theories features the “explanatory gap”
(Nagel, 1974; Levine, 1983), the fact that we have no idea why the neural
basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather than
another experience or no experience at all.

It is argued that the biological framework handles the explanatory gap
better than do the global workspace or higher order views. The article does
not discuss quantum theories or “panpsychist” accounts according to which
consciousness is a feature of the smallest particles of inorganic matter
(Chalmers, 1996; Rosenberg, 2004). Nor does it discuss the
“representationist” proposals (Tye, 2000; Byrne, 2001a) that are popular
among philosophers but not neuroscientists.

The explanatory gap

Phenomenal consciousness is “what it is like” to have an experience (Nagel, 1974). Any discussion of the physical basis of phenomenal consciousness (henceforth just consciousness) has to acknowledge the “explanatory gap” (Nagel, 1974; Levine, 1983): nothing that we now know, indeed nothing that we have been able to hypothesize or even fantasize, gives us an understanding of why the neural basis of the experience of green that I now have when I look at my screen saver is the neural basis of that experience as opposed to another experience or no experience at all.

Nagel puts the point in terms of the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity: the experience of green is a subjective state, but brain states are objective, and we do not understand how a subjective state could be an objective state or even how a subjective state could be based in an objective state. The problem of closing the explanatory gap (the “Hard Problem” as Chalmers, 1996, calls it) has four important aspects:

	(1) we do not see a hint of a solution; 
	(2) we have no good argument that there is no
	    solution that another kind of being could
	    grasp or that we may be able to grasp at a
	    later date (but see McGinn, 1991); so
	(3) the explanatory gap is not intrinsic to
	    consciousness; and  
	(4) most importantly for current purposes,
	    recognizing the first three points
	    requires no special theory of
	    consciousness.

All scientifically oriented accounts should agree that consciousness is in
some sense based in the brain; once this fact is accepted, the problem
arises of why the brain basis of this experience is the basis of this one
rather than another one or none, and it becomes obvious that nothing now
known gives a hint of an explanation.

The explanatory gap was first brought to the attention of scientists through
the work of Nagel (1974) and Crick and Koch (Crick, 1994; Crick & Koch,
1998). Many would argue that the candid recognition of what we do not
understand played an important role in fueling the incredible wave of
research that still engulfs us.

There is a fine line between acknowledging the explanatory gap and
surrendering to dualism. 

The explanatory gap and dualism

Dualism is the view that there is some aspect of the mind that is not
physical (Chalmers, 1996). It comes in many varieties, but the issues to be
discussed do not depend on any specific variety.

Let us start with a historical analogy (Nagel, 1974). A pre-Socratic
philosopher would have no way of understanding how heat could be a kind of
motion or of how light could be a kind of vibration. Why? Because the
pre-Socratic philosopher did not have the appropriate concepts of
motion — namely, the concept of kinetic energy and its role — or of
vibration — namely, the concepts involved in the wave theory of light — that
would allow an understanding of how such different concepts could pick out
the same phenomenon.

What is a concept? A concept is a mental representation usable in thought. We
often have more than one concept of the same thing. The concept light and the
concept electromagnetic radiation of 400–700 nm pick out the same
phenomenon. What the pre-Socratic philosopher lacks is a concept of light and
an appropriate concept of vibration (one that requires a whole theory). What
is missing for the pre-Socratic is not just the absence of a theoretical
definition but a lack of understanding of what things are grouped together
from a scientific point of view. We now realize that ripples in a pond,
sound, and light are all phenomena of the same kind: waves. And we now
realize that burning, rusting, and metabolizing are all cases of oxidation
(Churchland, 2002), but the pre-Socratics, given their framework in which the
basic categories were fire, earth, air, and water, would have had no way to
grasp these facts. One upshot is that if superscientists of the future were
to tell us what consciousness is, we probably would not have the conceptual
machinery to understand, just as the pre-Socratic would not have the
conceptual machinery to understand that heat is a kind of motion or that
light is a kind of vibration.

Armed with this idea, we can see how to steer between the explanatory gap and
dualism. What we lack is an objective neuroscientific concept that would
allow us to see how it could pick out the same phenomenon as our subjective
concept of the experience of green. And we can expect that we do not even
have the right subjective concept of the experience of green, since we are
not sure what subjective phenomena truly should be grouped together. The
resolution of the apparent conflict between the explanatory gap and
physicalism is that subjectivity and objectivity can be seen as properties of
concepts rather than properties of the states that the concepts are
concepts of. This idea, that we can see arguments that apparently indicate
ontological dualism — that is, a dualism of objects or substances or
properties — as really an argument for conceptual dualism, stems from Nagel
(1974) and Loar (1990/1997) and is sometimes called New Wave physicalism
(see Horgan & Tienson, 2001).

Another way of seeing the point is to consider Jackson's (1982) famous
thought experiment concerning Mary, a neuroscientist of the distant future
who knows everything there is to know about the scientific basis of color
experience, but has grown up in a black-and-white environment. When she sees
red for the first time, she learns what it is like to see red, despite
already knowing all the scientific facts about seeing red. Does this show
that the fact of what it is like to see red is not a scientific fact? No,
because we can think of what Mary learns in terms of her acquiring a
subjective concept of a state that she already had an objective concept
of. Imagine someone who already knows that Lake Michigan is filled with H2O,
but learns something new: that Lake Michigan is filled with water. What this
person learns is not a new fact but a new piece of knowledge, involving a new
concept, of a fact the person already knew. Similarly, Mary acquires new
knowledge, but that new knowledge does not go beyond the scientific facts
that she already knew about, and so does not support any kind of
dualism. (This line of thought is debated in Block, 2006; White, 2006.)

Importantly, this line of reasoning does not do away with the explanatory gap
but rather reconceives it as a failure to understand how a subjective and an
objective concept can pick out the same thing.

These points about different concepts of the same thing have sometimes been
used to try to dissolve the explanatory gap (Papineau, 2002). The idea is
that the false appearance of an explanatory gap arises from the gap between a
subjective concept of a phenomenally conscious state and an objective concept
of the same state. But note: I can think the thought that the color I am now
experiencing as I look at an orange (invoking a subjective concept of orange)
is identical to the color between red and yellow (invoking an objective
concept of orange). But this use of the two kinds of concepts engenders no
explanatory gap.

[goes on to relate the explanatory gap to the three theories being
considered.] 

Contents

Preface

I. DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION

Introduction 
	Pasko Rakic and Leo M. Chalupa
1. Development of the Primate Cerebral Cortex 
	Pasko Rakic, Jon I. Arellano, and Joshua Breunig
2. Early Development of Neuronal Circuitry of the Human Prefrontal
   Cortex 
	Ivica Kostovic and Milos Judas
3. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Uniqueness 
	Todd M. Preuss
4. Unraveling the Role of Neuronal Activity in the Formation of
   Eye-Specific Connections 
	Leo M. Chalupa and Andrew D. Huberman
5. Brain Changes Underlying the Development of Cognitive Control
   and Reasoning 
	Silvia A. Bunge, Allyson P. Mackey, and Kirstie J. Whitaker

II. PLASTICITY

Introduction 
	Helen Neville and Mriganka Sur
6. Patterning and Plasticity of Maps in the Mammalian Visual
   Pathway 
	Sam Horng and Mriganka Sur
7. Synaptic Plasticity and Spatial Representations in the
   Hippocampus 
	Jonathan R. Whitlock and Edvard I. Moser
8. Visual Cortical Plasticity and Perceptual Learning 
	Wu Li and Charles D. Gilbert
9. Characterizing and Modulating Neuroplasticity of the Adult Human
   Brain 
	Alvaro Pascual-Leone
10. Exercising Your Brain: Training-Related Brain Plasticity 
	Daphne Bavelier, C. Shawn Green, and Matthew W. G. Dye
11. Profiles of Development and Plasticity in Human Neurocognition 
	Courtney Stevens and Helen Neville

III. ATTENTION

Introduction 
	Steven J. Luck and George R. Mangun
12. Attention: Theoretical and Psychological Perspectives 
	Anne Treisman
13. Mechanisms of Selective Attention in the Human Visual System:
    Evidence from Neuroimaging 
	Sabine Kastner, Stephanie A. McMains, and Diane M. Beck
14. The Frontoparietal Attention Network 
	Maurizio Corbetta, Chad M. Sylvester, and Gordon L. Shulman
15. Spatiotemporal Analysis of Visual Attention 
	Jens-Max Hopf, Hans-Jochen Heinze, Mircea A. Schoenfeld,
	and Steven A. Hillyard 
16. Integration of Conflict Detection and Attentional Control
    Mechanisms: Combined ERP and fMRI Studies 
	George R. Mangun, Clifford D. Saron, and Bong J. Walsh
17. A Right Perisylvian Neural Network for Human Spatial Orienting 
	Hans-Otto Karnath
18. Spatial Deficits and Selective Attention 
	Lynn C. Robertson
19. The Effect of Attention on the Responses of Individual Visual Neurons 
	John H. R. Maunsell
20. Selective Attention Through Selective Neuronal Synchronization 
	Thilo Womelsdorf and Pascal Fries

IV. SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

Introduction 
	J. Anthony Movshon and Brian A. Wandell
21. Grandmother Cells, Symmetry, and Invariance: How the Term Arose
    and What the Facts Suggest 
	Horace Barlow
22. Olfaction: From Percept to Molecule 
	Yaara Yeshurun, Hadas Lapid, Rafi Haddad, Shani Gelstien,
	Anat Arzi, Lee Sela, Aharon Weisbrod, Rehan Khan, and Noam Sobel 
23. Auditory Masking with Complex Stimuli 
	Virginia M. Richards and Gerald Kidd, Jr.
24. Insights into Human Auditory Processing Gained from Perceptual
    Learning 
	Beverly A. Wright and Yuxuan Zhang
25. Auditory Object Analysis 
	Timothy D. Griffiths, Sukhbinder Kumar, Katharina von
    	Kriegstein, Tobias Overath, Klaas E. Stephan, and Karl J. Friston 
26. The Cone Photoreceptor Mosaic in Normal and Defective Color Vision 
	Joseph Carroll, Geunyoung Yoon, and David R. Williams
27. Bayesian Approaches to Color Vision 
	David H. Brainard
28. Wiring of Receptive Fields and Functional Maps in Primary Visual
    Cortex 
	Dario L. Ringach
29. Encoding and Decoding with Neural Populations in the Primate Cortex 
	Eyal Seidemann, Yuzhi Chen, and Wilson S. Geisler
30. Perceptual Filling-in: From Experimental Data to Neural Network
    Modeling 
	Rainer Goebel and Peter De Weerd
31. Neural Transformation of Object Information by Ventral Pathway
    Visual Cortex 
	Charles E. Connor, Anitha Pasupathy, Scott Brincat, and Yukako Yamane
32. The Cognitive and Neural Development of Face Recognition in Humans 
	Elinor McKone, Kate Crookes, and Nancy Kanwisher
33. Roles of Visual Area MT in Depth Perception 
	Gregory C. DeAngelis
34. Multisensory Integration for Heading Perception in Macaque Visual
    Cortex 
	Dora E. Angelaki, Yong Gu, and Gregory C. DeAngelis
35. Visual Stability during Saccadic Eye Movements 
	Concetta Morrone and David Burr
36. Optimal Estimation in Sensory Systems 
	Eero P. Simoncelli

V. MOTOR SYSTEMS

Introduction 
	Scott T. Grafton and Emilio Bizzi
37. Neurobiology of Coordinate Transformations 
	Emilio Bizzi and Ferdinando A. Mussa-Ivaldi
38. Basal Ganglia and Cerebellar Circuits with the Cerebral Cortex 
	Richard P. Dum and Peter L. Strick
39. The Basal Ganglia and Cognition 
	Ann M. Graybiel and Jonathan W. Mink
40. Computational Neuroanatomy of Voluntary Motor Control 
	Reza Shadmehr and John W. Krakauer
41. Forward Models and State Estimation in Posterior Parietal Cortex 
	Grant H. Mulliken and Richard A. Andersen
42. Parallels between Sensory and Motor Information Processing 
	Emanuel Todorov
43. The Mirror Neuron System: A Motor-Based Mechanism for Action and
    Intention Understanding 
	Giacomo Rizzolatti, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese
44. Relative Hierarchies and the Representation of Action 
	Scott T. Grafton, L. Aziz-Zadeh, and R. B. Ivry

VI. MEMORY

Introduction 
	Daniel L. Schacter
45. Comparative Analysis of the Cortical Afferents, Intrinsic
    Projections, and Interconnections of the Parahippocampal Region in
    Monkeys and Rats 
	Wendy A. Suzuki
46. Medial Temporal Lobe Function and Human Memory 
	Yael Shrager and Larry R. Squire
47. Reconsolidation: A Possible Bridge between Cognitive and
    Neuroscientific Views of Memory 
	Karim Nader
48. The Dynamic Interplay between Cognitive Control and Memory 
	Elizabeth A. Race, Brice A. Kuhl, David Badre, and Anthony D. Wagner
49. Phases of Influence: How Emotion Modulates the Formation and
    Retrieval of Declarative Memories 
	Elizabeth A. Kensinger
50. Individual Differences in the Engagement of the Cortex during an
    Episodic Memory Task 
	Michael B. Miller
51. Constructive Memory and the Simulation of Future Events 
	Daniel L. Schacter, Donna Rose Addis, and Randy L. Buckner

VII. LANGUAGE

  Introduction 
Alfonso Caramazza
52. The Cortical Organization of Phonological Processing 
	Gregory Hickok
53. Morphological Processes in Language Production 
	Kevin A. Shapiro and Alfonso Caramazza
54. Ventral and Dorsal Contributions to Word Reading 
	Laurent Cohen and Stanislas Dehaene
55. The Neural Basis of Syntactic Processing 
	David Caplan
56. Semantic Unification 
	Peter Hagoort, Giosuè Baggio, and Roel M. Willems
57. Early Language Acquisition: Neural Substrates and Theoretical
    Models 
	Patricia K. Kuhl
58. Genetics of Language 
	Franck Ramus and Simon E. Fisher
59. The Biology and Evolution of Language: “Deep Homology” and the
    Evolution of Innovation 
	W. Tecumseh Fitch

VIII. THE EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL BRAIN

Introduction 
	Todd F. Heatherton and Joseph E. LeDoux
60. Ontogeny of Infant Fear Learning and the Amygdala 
	Regina M. Sullivan, Stephanie Moriceau, Charlis Raineki, and
	Tania L. Roth 
61. Emotional Reaction and Action: From Threat Processing to
    Goal-Directed Behavior 
	Joseph E. LeDoux, Daniela Schiller, and Christopher Cain
62. Interactions of Emotion and Attention in Perception 
	Patrik Vuilleumier and Tobias Brosch
63. Context Effects and the Amygdala 
	Paul J. Whalen and F. Caroline Davis
64. Neurogenetic Studies of Variability in Human Emotion 
	Ahmad R. Hariri
65. Components of a Social Brain 
	Jason P. Mitchell and Todd F. Heatherton
66. The Neural Basis of Emotion Regulation: Making Emotion Work for
    You and Not Against You 
	Jennifer S. Beer
67. Sharing the Emotions of Others: The Neural Bases of Empathy 
	Tania Singer and Susanne Leiberg
68. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Moral Judgment 
	Joshua D. Greene

IX. HIGHER COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS

Introduction 
	Elizabeth A. Phelps
69. Prefrontal Substrate of Human Relational Reasoning 
	Barbara J. Knowlton and Keith J. Holyoak
70. Decision Making and Prefrontal Executive Function 
	Christopher Summerfield and Etienne Koechlin
71. Circuits in Mind: The Neural Foundations for Object Concepts 
	Alex Martin
72. Semantic Cognition: Its Nature, Its Development, and Its Neural Basis 
	James L. McClelland, Timothy T. Rogers, Karalyn Patterson,
	Katia Dilkina, and Matthew Lambon Ralph 
73. Two Views of Brain Function 
	Marcus E. Raichle
74. The Neuroeconomics of Simple Goal-Directed Choice (Circa 2008) 
	Antonio Rangel
75. Neuroeconomics and the Study of Valuation 
	Paul W. Glimcher
76. Emotion and Decision Making 
	Elizabeth A. Phelps and Mauricio R. Delgado

X. CONSCIOUSNESS

Introduction 
	Christof Koch
77. Comparing the Major Theories of Consciousness 
	Ned Block
78. Recovery of Consciousness after Brain Injury: An Integrative
    Research Paradigm for the Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness 
	Nicholas D. Schiff
79. The Neurobiology of Consciousness 
	Christof Koch
80. Visual Awareness 
	Geraint Rees
81. The Role of Feedback in Visual Attention and Awareness 
	Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde
82. Emotion and Consciousness 
	Michael Koenigs and Ralph Adolphs
83. Volition and the Function of Consciousness 
	Hakwan Lau
84. Toward a Theory of Consciousness 
	Giulio Tononi and David Balduzzi

XI. PERSPECTIVES

85. Mapping Cognitive Neuroscience: Two-Dimensional Perspectives on
    Twenty Years of Cognitive Neuroscience Research 
	John T. Bruer
86. Reflections on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language 
	Sheila E. Blumstein
87. Why the Imagery Debate Won't Go Away 
	Stephen M. Kosslyn, William L. Thompson, and Giorgio Ganis
88. Looking Toward the Future: Perspectives on Examining the
    Architecture and Function of the Human Brain as a Complex System 
	Michael S. Gazzaniga, Karl W. Doron, and Chadd M. Funk
89. The Landscape of Cognitive Neuroscience: Challenges, Rewards, and
    New Perspectives 
	Elissa M. Aminoff, Daniela Balslev, Paola Borroni, Ronald E. Bryan,
	Elizabeth F. Chua, Jasmin Cloutier, Emily S. Cross, Trafton Drew,
	Chadd M. Funk, Ricardo Gil-da-Costa, Scott A. Guerin, Julie L. Hall,
	Kerry E. Jordan, Ayelet N. Landau, Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, 
	Leila Montaser-Kouhsari, Jonas K. Olofsson, Susanne Quadflieg, 
	Leah H. Somerville, Jocelyn L. Sy, Lucina Q. Uddin, and Makiko Yamada

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