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Cited by 246Philosophy and Theoretical ScienceEmbodied and Extended CognitionVisual perception and processing mechanisms

The neural subjective frame: from bodily signals to perceptual consciousness

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Park, Hyeong-Dong, Tallon-Baudry, Catherine·2014·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
DOI 10.1098/rstb.2013.0208PMC PMC3965163
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Abstract

The report ‘I saw the stimulus’ operationally defines visual consciousness, but where does the ‘I’ come from? To account for the subjective dimension of perceptual experience, we introduce the concept of the neural subjective frame. The neural subjective frame would be based on the constantly updated neural maps of the internal state of the body and constitute a neural referential from which first person experience can be created. We propose to root the neural subjective frame in the neural representation of visceral information which is transmitted through multiple anatomical pathways to a number of target sites, including posterior insula, ventral anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala and somatosensory cortex. We review existing experimental evidence showing that the processing of external stimuli can interact with visceral function. The neural subjective frame is a low-level building block of subjective experience which is not explicitly experienced by itself which is necessary but not sufficient for perceptual experience. It could also underlie other types of subjective experiences such as self-consciousness and emotional feelings. Because the neural subjective frame is tightly linked to homeostatic regulations involved in vigilance, it could also make a link between state and content consciousness.

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  • The global workspace can be interpreted as working memory within the brain, expected to maintain information required to sustain a state of consciousness across variable lengths of time.

    “In addition, the global workspace can be interpreted as working memory within the brain, as it is also expected to maintain the information required to sustain a state of consciousness across variable lengths of time (Lau and Rosenthal, 2011; Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014).”

    From Design and evaluation of a global workspace agent embodied in a realistic multimodal environment (2024) · cites this paper as Park and Tallon-Baudry, 2014

    Section 2 describes availability in a global frontoparietal workspace as a theory of perceptual consciousness. But it does not interpret that workspace as working memory or say it maintains information across variable lengths of time. The multiple timescales discussed in the section on visceral signals concern the proposed neural subjective frame, not the global workspace. (LLM, conf=0.78)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Conscious experience has other properties, such as first person perspective and intrinsic mineness.

    “However, conscious experience has other properties 47 , such as first person perspective, i.e. an egocentric viewpoint on the world, and intrinsic mineness, i.e. the fact that a conscious percept belongs to the observer, and that the observer rarely fails to perceive it as his or her own experience - at least in healthy human adults.”

    From Interoceptive rhythms in the brain (2023) · cites this paper as [47]

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Authors
Park, H.-D., & Tallon-Baudry, C.
Affiliations
  • Inserm (FR)
  • Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, INSERM-ENS, 29 rue d'Ulm, Paris, France
ORCID
Park, Hyeong-Dong
Venue
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
2014-05-05
Volume
369
Issue
1641
Pages
20130208
ISSN
  • 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-2970
DOI
10.1098/rstb.2013.0208
PMC
PMC3965163
OpenAlex
W1990230881
Cited by
246
References
19
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 6
FWCI
19.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-LABX-0087)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
Keywords
visual awareness, first-person experience, perceptual consciousness, posterior insula, ventral anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, somatosensory cortex, self-consciousness, feelings, homeostatic regulation, sustained attention
MeSH terms
Awareness, Consciousness, Decision Making, Hemodynamics, Humans, Individuality, Models, Neurological, Models, Psychological, Neural Pathways, Perception

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