@inbook{d7cdb5901f394df1b320d5a0a32d77ad,
title = "Consciousness extended: Bridging informational broadcast and perceptual awareness within a comprehensive conceptualization of consciousness",
abstract = "There is no consensus yet regarding a conceptualization of consciousness able to accommodate all the features of such complex phenomenon. Different theoretical and empirical models lend strength to both the occurrence of a non-accessible informational broadcast, and to the mobilization of specific brain areas responsible for the emergence of the individual´s explicit and variable access to given segments of such broadcast. Rather than advocating one model over others, this chapter proposes to broaden the conceptualization of consciousness by letting it embrace both mechanisms. Within such extended framework, I propose conceptual and functional distinctions between consciousness (global broadcast of information), awareness (individual´s ability to access the content of such broadcast) and unconsciousness (focally isolated neural activations). My hypothesis is that a demarcation in terms of neural thresholds distinguishes the unfolding of the informational broadcast from the emergence of subjective awareness. In such sense, I conceptualize consciousness as a phenomenon unfolding along a continuum, ranging from complete inaccessibility to full awareness. The proposal presented in this chapter grants both quantitative and qualitative parameters to the phenomenon, it affords hypotheses aimed at explaining specific neurological disorders, and it can account for different phenomenological features of the phenomenon.",
author = "Claudia Carrara-Augustenborg",
year = "2012",
language = "English",
series = "Perspectives on Cognitive Science",
publisher = "Nova Science Publishers",
pages = "15--31",
editor = "A.E. Cavanna and A. Nani",
booktitle = "Consciousness",
address = "United States",
}