Active components of classical working memory are conscious, but traditional theory does not account for this fact. Global Workspace theory suggests that consciousness is needed to recruit unconscious specialized networks that carry out detailed working memory functions. The IDA model provides a fine-grained analysis of this process, specifically of two classical working-memory tasks, verbal re...

Despite the obvious confluence of concerns between psychodynamic psychology and the emerging field of consciousness studies, the extent to which psychodynamic thinking has factored into the consciousness literature has been limited. With widespread interest in “the unconscious” having significantly diminished, the present paper asks what might be implied in the shift towards the notion of “cons...

I have been asked to write a few words on consciousness in this editorial issue. My thoughts on consciousness will focus on the relation between consciousness and will. Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon as some people believe-it is not a psychological construct either. Consciousness is a brain function. With deeper thought it is even more than that-a brain state. Writing this, I am in a con...

A great deal of complex cognitive processing occurs at the unconscious level and affects how humans behave, think, and feel. Scientists are only now beginning to understand how this occurs on the neural level. Understanding the neural basis of consciousness requires an account of the neural mechanisms that underlie both conscious and unconscious thought, and their dynamic interaction. For examp...

na a a am m m mi i i ic c c c p p p pe e e er r r rs s s sp p p pe e e ec c c ct t t ti i i iv v v ve e e e While the study of implicit learning is nothing new, the field as a whole has come to embody — over the last decade or so — ongoing questioning about three of the most fundamental debates in the cognitive sciences: The nature of consciousness, the nature of mental representation (in parti...