Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- PART II NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- 5 Cortical evolution and modularity
- 6 Arousal, perception and affect
- 7 Attention, working memory, language and executive function
- 8 Neural models of conscious properties
- PART III PHILOSOPHY, NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- Concluding semi-scientific postscript
- Appendix Functional neuroanatomy
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Arousal, perception and affect
from PART II - NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- PART II NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- 5 Cortical evolution and modularity
- 6 Arousal, perception and affect
- 7 Attention, working memory, language and executive function
- 8 Neural models of conscious properties
- PART III PHILOSOPHY, NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
- Concluding semi-scientific postscript
- Appendix Functional neuroanatomy
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The neurophysiology and neuropsychology of cortical assemblies and pathways is complex enough without having to overlay on to them the difficulties introduced by conscious properties – qualitative character, intentionality and subjective perspectivity. And yet this nest of issues is exactly what must be analysed if the properties of neural assemblies and pathways are to be taken seriously as contenders for the substrates for, or realizers of, conscious properties.
In this chapter, we focus on perceptual and affective conscious events. Both have been intensively studied by neurophysiologists, neuropsychologists and neuropsychiatrists. This work provides neural correlates for each of the perceptual modalities and for many interoceptive, proprioceptive and affective modalities. For the most part, neuroscientists have approached these conscious events and processes by focusing on the neural correlates for particular sensory modalities, such as vision or olfaction, or on affections, such as disgust or empathy. Little of this enormous body of research has tried to isolate the conscious qualitative features of perception and affection. But that is not to say that there is no work on these topics. So, in addition to outlining neural pathways for the sensory modalities and some affections, a smaller subset of these studies that purport to isolate neural correlates of the qualitative features of two sensory modalities, taste and smell, a pair of interoceptive phenomena, thirst and pain, and a pair of affective phenomena, fear and disgust, are also reviewed. We begin, however, with the physiological states of arousal and alertness, both of which are preconditions for conscious experience, and the default mode, a state superficially similar to alertness.
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- Information
- Philosophy, Neuroscience and Consciousness , pp. 124 - 148Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2010