Mahault Albarracin, Gabriel Bouchard-Joly, Zahra Sheikhbahaee, Mark Miller, Riddhi J Pitliya, Pierre Poirier
{"title":"Feeling our place in the world: an active inference account of self-esteem.","authors":"Mahault Albarracin, Gabriel Bouchard-Joly, Zahra Sheikhbahaee, Mark Miller, Riddhi J Pitliya, Pierre Poirier","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae007","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Self-esteem, the evaluation of one's own worth or value, is a critical aspect of psychological well-being and mental health. In this paper, we propose an active inference account of self-esteem, casting it as a sociometer or an inferential capacity to interpret one's standing within a social group. This approach allows us to explore the interaction between an individual's self-perception and the expectations of their social environment.When there is a mismatch between these perceptions and expectations, the individual needs to adjust their actions or update their self-perception to better align with their current experiences. We also consider this hypothesis in relation with recent research on affective inference, suggesting that self-esteem enables the individual to track and respond to this discrepancy through affective states such as anxiety or positive affect. By acting as an inferential sociometer, self-esteem allows individuals to navigate and adapt to their social environment, ultimately impacting their psychological well-being and mental health.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae007"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10984624/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140337634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deep CANALs: a deep learning approach to refining the canalization theory of psychopathology.","authors":"Arthur Juliani, Adam Safron, Ryota Kanai","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae005","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Psychedelic therapy has seen a resurgence of interest in the last decade, with promising clinical outcomes for the treatment of a variety of psychopathologies. In response to this success, several theoretical models have been proposed to account for the positive therapeutic effects of psychedelics. One of the more prominent models is \"RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics,\" which proposes that psychedelics act therapeutically by relaxing the strength of maladaptive high-level beliefs encoded in the brain. The more recent \"CANAL\" model of psychopathology builds on the explanatory framework of RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics by proposing that canalization (the development of overly rigid belief landscapes) may be a primary factor in psychopathology. Here, we make use of learning theory in deep neural networks to develop a series of refinements to the original CANAL model. Our primary theoretical contribution is to disambiguate two separate optimization landscapes underlying belief representation in the brain and describe the unique pathologies which can arise from the canalization of each. Along each dimension, we identify pathologies of either too much or too little canalization, implying that the construct of canalization does not have a simple linear correlation with the presentation of psychopathology. In this expanded paradigm, we demonstrate the ability to make novel predictions regarding what aspects of psychopathology may be amenable to psychedelic therapy, as well as what forms of psychedelic therapy may ultimately be most beneficial for a given individual.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae005"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10965250/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140295236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hannah Biddell, Mark Solms, Heleen Slagter, Ruben Laukkonen
{"title":"Arousal coherence, uncertainty, and well-being: an active inference account.","authors":"Hannah Biddell, Mark Solms, Heleen Slagter, Ruben Laukkonen","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae011","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Here we build on recent findings which show that greater alignment between our subjective experiences (how we feel) and physiological states (measurable changes in our body) plays a pivotal role in the overall psychological well-being. Specifically, we propose that the alignment or 'coherence' between affective arousal (e.g. how excited we 'feel') and autonomic arousal (e.g. heart rate or pupil dilation) may be key for maintaining up-to-date uncertainty representations in dynamic environments. Drawing on recent advances in interoceptive and affective inference, we also propose that arousal coherence reflects interoceptive integration, facilitates adaptive belief updating, and impacts our capacity to adapt to changes in uncertainty, with downstream consequences to well-being. We also highlight the role of meta-awareness of arousal, a third level of inference, which may permit conscious awareness, learning about, and intentional regulation of lower-order sources of arousal. Practices emphasizing meta-awareness of arousal (like meditation) may therefore elicit some of their known benefits via improved arousal coherence. We suggest that arousal coherence is also likely to be associated with markers of adaptive functioning (like emotional awareness and self-regulatory capacities) and discuss mind-body practices that may increase coherence.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae011"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10949961/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140177664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hierarchical consciousness: the Nested Observer Windows model.","authors":"Justin Riddle, Jonathan W Schooler","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae010","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Foremost in our experience is the intuition that we possess a unified conscious experience. However, many observations run counter to this intuition: we experience paralyzing indecision when faced with two appealing behavioral choices, we simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs, and the content of our thought is often characterized by an internal debate. Here, we propose the Nested Observer Windows (NOW) Model, a framework for hierarchical consciousness wherein information processed across many spatiotemporal scales of the brain feeds into subjective experience. The model likens the mind to a hierarchy of nested mosaic tiles-where an image is composed of mosaic tiles, and each of these tiles is itself an image composed of mosaic tiles. Unitary consciousness exists at the apex of this nested hierarchy where perceptual constructs become fully integrated and complex behaviors are initiated via abstract commands. We define an observer window as a spatially and temporally constrained system within which information is integrated, e.g. in functional brain regions and neurons. Three principles from the signal analysis of electrical activity describe the nested hierarchy and generate testable predictions. First, nested observer windows disseminate information across spatiotemporal scales with cross-frequency coupling. Second, observer windows are characterized by a high degree of internal synchrony (with zero phase lag). Third, observer windows at the same spatiotemporal level share information with each other through coherence (with non-zero phase lag). The theoretical framework of the NOW Model accounts for a wide range of subjective experiences and a novel approach for integrating prominent theories of consciousness.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae010"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10949963/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140177666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Being: social media and the predictive mind.","authors":"Ben White, Andy Clark, Mark Miller","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae008","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social media is implicated today in an array of mental health concerns. While concerns around social media have become mainstream, little is known about the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying the correlations seen in these studies or why we find it so hard to stop engaging with these platforms when things obviously begin to deteriorate for us. New advances in computational neuroscience, however, are now poised to shed light on this matter. In this paper, we approach the phenomenon of social media addiction through the lens of the active inference framework. According to this framework, predictive agents like us use a 'generative model' of the world to predict our own incoming sense data and act to minimize any discrepancy between the prediction and incoming signal (prediction error). In order to live well and be able to act effectively to minimize prediction error, it is vital that agents like us have a generative model, which not only accurately reflects the regularities of our complex environment but is also flexible and dynamic and able to stay accurate in volatile and turbulent circumstances. In this paper, we propose that some social media platforms are a spectacularly effective way of warping an agent's generative model and of arresting the model's ability to flexibly track and adapt to changes in the environment. We go on to investigate cases of digital tech, which do not have these adverse effects and suggest-based on the active inference framework-some ways to understand why some forms of digital technology pose these risks, while others do not.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae008"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10949958/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140177665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Georg Schauer, Pablo Rodrigo Grassi, Alireza Gharabaghi, Andreas Bartels
{"title":"Parietal theta burst TMS does not modulate bistable perception.","authors":"Georg Schauer, Pablo Rodrigo Grassi, Alireza Gharabaghi, Andreas Bartels","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae009","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae009","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The role of the parietal cortex in perceptual awareness and in resolving perceptual ambiguity is unsettled. Early influential transcranial magnetic stimulation studies have revealed differences in conscious perception following parietal stimulation, fuelling the notion that parietal cortex causally contributes to resolving perceptual ambiguity. However, central to this conclusion is the reliability of the method employed. Several prior studies have revealed opposing effects, such as shortening, lengthening, or no effect on multistable perceptual transitions following parietal stimulation. Here we addressed the reliability of continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) on parietal cortex on the perception of bistable stimuli. We conducted three cTBS experiments that were matched to prior experiments in terms of stimuli, stimulation protocol, and target site, and used a higher number of participants. None of our cTBS experiments replicated prior cTBS results. The only experiment using individual functional localizers led to weak effects, while the two others led to null results. Individual variability of motor cortex cTBS did not predict parietal cTBS effects. In view of recent reports of highly variable cTBS effects over motor cortex, our results suggest that cTBS is particularly unreliable in modulating bistable perception when applied over parietal cortex.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae009"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10972555/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140307800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"(Dis)confirming theories of consciousness and their predictions: towards a Lakatosian consciousness science.","authors":"Niccolò Negro","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae012","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae012","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The neuroscience of consciousness is undergoing a significant empirical acceleration thanks to several adversarial collaborations that intend to test different predictions of rival theories of consciousness. In this context, it is important to pair consciousness science with confirmation theory, the philosophical discipline that explores the interaction between evidence and hypotheses, in order to understand how exactly, and to what extent, specific experiments are challenging or validating theories of consciousness. In this paper, I examine this intricate relationship by adopting a Lakatosian lens. I propose that Lakatos' philosophy of science can aid consciousness scientists to better interpret adversarial collaborations in consciousness science and, more generally, to develop a confirmation-theoretic model of theory-appraisal in this field. I do so by suggesting that such a model be built upon three Lakatos-inspired criteria for assessing the relationship between empirical evidence and theoretical predictions: (i) the model should represent the 'distinction between prediction and accommodation'; (ii) the model should represent the 'structural relevance' of predictions; (iii) the model should represent the 'boldness' of the predictions. I argue that a Lakatosian model of theory-appraisal has both normative and descriptive virtues, and can move the debate forward by acknowledging that theory-appraisal needs to consider the diachronic development of theories, their logical structure, and their relationship with background beliefs and knowledge.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae012"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10944285/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140144556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xu Ji, Eric Elmoznino, George Deane, Axel Constant, Guillaume Dumas, Guillaume Lajoie, Jonathan Simon, Yoshua Bengio
{"title":"Sources of richness and ineffability for phenomenally conscious states","authors":"Xu Ji, Eric Elmoznino, George Deane, Axel Constant, Guillaume Dumas, Guillaume Lajoie, Jonathan Simon, Yoshua Bengio","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niae001","url":null,"abstract":"Conscious states—state that there is something it is like to be in—seem both rich or full of detail and ineffable or hard to fully describe or recall. The problem of ineffability, in particular, is a longstanding issue in philosophy that partly motivates the explanatory gap: the belief that consciousness cannot be reduced to underlying physical processes. Here, we provide an information theoretic dynamical systems perspective on the richness and ineffability of consciousness. In our framework, the richness of conscious experience corresponds to the amount of information in a conscious state and ineffability corresponds to the amount of information lost at different stages of processing. We describe how attractor dynamics in working memory would induce impoverished recollections of our original experiences, how the discrete symbolic nature of language is insufficient for describing the rich and high-dimensional structure of experiences, and how similarity in the cognitive function of two individuals relates to improved communicability of their experiences to each other. While our model may not settle all questions relating to the explanatory gap, it makes progress toward a fully physicalist explanation of the richness and ineffability of conscious experience—two important aspects that seem to be part of what makes qualitative character so puzzling.","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140069956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reshanne R Reeder, Giovanni Sala, Tessa M van Leeuwen
{"title":"A novel model of divergent predictive perception.","authors":"Reshanne R Reeder, Giovanni Sala, Tessa M van Leeuwen","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae006","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Predictive processing theories state that our subjective experience of reality is shaped by a balance of expectations based on previous knowledge about the world (i.e. priors) and confidence in sensory input from the environment. Divergent experiences (e.g. hallucinations and synaesthesia) are likely to occur when there is an imbalance between one's reliance on priors and sensory input. In a novel theoretical model, inspired by both predictive processing and psychological principles, we propose that predictable divergent experiences are associated with natural or environmentally induced prior/sensory imbalances: inappropriately strong or inflexible (i.e. maladaptive) high-level priors (beliefs) combined with low sensory confidence can result in reality discrimination issues, a characteristic of psychosis; maladaptive low-level priors (sensory expectations) combined with high sensory confidence can result in atypical sensory sensitivities and persistent divergent percepts, a characteristic of synaesthesia. Crucially, we propose that whether different divergent experiences manifest with dominantly sensory (e.g. hallucinations) or nonsensory characteristics (e.g. delusions) depends on mental imagery ability, which is a spectrum from aphantasia (absent or weak imagery) to hyperphantasia (extremely vivid imagery). We theorize that imagery is critically involved in shaping the sensory richness of divergent perceptual experience. In sum, to predict a range of divergent perceptual experiences in both clinical and general populations, three factors must be accounted for: a maladaptive use of priors, individual level of confidence in sensory input, and mental imagery ability. These ideas can be expressed formally using nonparametric regression modeling. We provide evidence for our theory from previous work and deliver predictions for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae006"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10860603/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139724955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Haley G Frey, Lua Koenig, Biyu J He, Jan W Brascamp
{"title":"A novel, semi-automatic procedure for generating slow change blindness stimuli.","authors":"Haley G Frey, Lua Koenig, Biyu J He, Jan W Brascamp","doi":"10.1093/nc/niae004","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niae004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Change blindness is the phenomenon that occurs when an observer fails to notice what would seem to be obvious changes in the features of a visual stimulus. Researchers can induce this experimentally by including visual disruptions (such as brief blanks) that coincide with the changes in question. However, change blindness can also occur in the absence of these disruptions if a change occurs sufficiently slowly. This \"slow\" or \"gradual\" change blindness phenomenon has not been extensively researched. Two plausible practical reasons for this are that there are few slow-change stimuli available, and that it is difficult to collect trial-specific responses without affecting expectations on later trials. Here, we describe a novel, semi-automatic procedure for quickly generating many slow-change stimuli. This procedure creates stimuli that have been specifically designed to allow assessment of change blindness on individual trials without influencing subsequent trials. We include the results of three validation experiments that demonstrate that these stimuli are effective and suitable for use in systematic studies of slow change blindness.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2024 1","pages":"niae004"},"PeriodicalIF":4.1,"publicationDate":"2024-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10860497/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139724956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}