Abstract:   This article tries to create a bridge of understanding between cognitive scientists and phenomenologists who work on attention. In light of a phenomenology of attention and current psychological and neuropsychological literature on attention, I translate and interpret into phenomenological terms 20 key cognitive science concepts as examined in the laboratory and used in leading journals. As a preface to the lexicon, I outline a phenomenology of attention, especially as a dynamic three-part structure, which I have freely amended from the work of phenomenologist and Gestalt philosopher Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973). As a conclusion, I discuss the nature of subjectivity in attention and attention research, and whether attention might be the same as consciousness

Abstract: There is a considerable amount of research being done on attention by cognitive psychologists. I claim that in the process of measuring and mapping consciousness, these researchers have missed important phenomenological findings. After a synopsis and illustration of the nature of attention as described by Aron Gurwitsch, I critique the assumptions of current psychological research on this topic. Included is discussion of the metaphor of attention as a beam or spotlight, the concept of selective attention as the standard accomplishment, and the cognitive bestowal of organization on otherwise unorganized data. It is concluded that cognitive psychologists and others working on attention can benefit from Gurwitsch's work, and that a credible account of attention is crucial to the success of any comprehensive statement on the nature of consciousness

Abstract: What are the relations between preattentive feature-placing and states of perceptual awareness? For the purposes of this paper, states of "perceptual awareness" are confined to the simplest possible exemplars: states in which one is aware of some aspect of the appearance of something one perceives. Subjective contours are used as an example. Early visual processing seems to employ independent, high-bandwidth, preattentive feature "channels", followed by a selective process that directs selective attention. The mechanisms that yield subjective contours are found very early in this processing. An experiment by Greg Davis and Jon Driver is described; it seems to show that multiple subjective figures can be coded in these preattentive, parallel stages of visual processing. I propose that some of these preattentive states might register the very same differences that, were one aware of them, would be phenomenal differences. Some arguments pro and con on this possibility are assessed

Abstract: Rafael Malach is currently a professor in the department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. His current research is aimed at understanding how the neuronal circuitry in the human brain translates a stream of sensory stimuli into meaningful perception. Rafael Malach received his PhD in physiological optics from UC Berkeley and did his post-doctorate research at MIT. Originally doing research on the organization of neuronal connections in the primate brain, his focus has recently shifted to the study of the human cerebral cortex using fMRI. Professor Malach has begun this research at Massachusetts General Hospital, exploring a new object-related region called the lateral occipital complex. Since then he expanded this research, studying the human visual cortex using a variety of methods, including adaptation paradigms, backward masking, and more recently naturalistic stimuli--all aimed at deciphering the intriguing link between perceptual experience and brain activity

Abstract: What are the states of consciousness in themselves, those pulses of mentality that follow one upon another in tight succession and constitute the stream of consciousness? William James conceives of each of them as being, typically, a complex unitary awareness that instantiates many features and takes a multiplicity of objects. In contrast, Brian O’Shaughnessy claims that the basic durational component of the stream of consciousness is the attention, which he understands to be something like a psychic space that is simultaneously occupied by several experiences. Whereas, according to the first conception, emotion is a feature of a temporal segment of the stream of consciousness and colors through and through each consciousness state that instantiates it, the second conception considers an emotion to be a distinct one of a system of simultaneous experiences that interact with each other, for example, limiting each other’s number and intensity. Among other matters discussed is the two theorists’ mutually contrasting conception of how the non-inferential awareness which we have of our states of consciousness is accomplished

Abstract: _The Sub ject of Con scious ness_ is a rich, strik ingly orig i nal and ambi tious work. It makes an impor tant and timely con tri bu tion to cur rent debates on a num ber of issues which over the last few years have been tak ing cen tre stage in the phi los o phy of mind: for exam ple, self-consciousness, selec tive atten tion and the nature of bodily aware ness. What makes this achieve ment some what unusual, and all the more remark able, is that _The Sub ject of Con scious ness_ was pub lished thirty years ago (Evans, 1970). The reviews it received at the time ranged from the hos tile to the deri sory — one of the more pos i tive com ments was Dennett’s remark that the book was ‘cou ra geously unfash ion able’(Dennett, 1971, p. 180). Per haps partly as a result of this ini tial recep - tion, the book has been under-utilized, to say the least. In ret ro spect, I think it is clear that none of the review ers was really able to rec og nize the sig nif i cance of the issues dis cussed in the book, let alone do jus tice to the the ory it devel ops. What they cer - tainly failed to appre ci ate is the imag i na tive and sure-footed way in which Evans draws on, and engages with, psy cho log i cal work on atten tion (espe cially T. Ribot and Wil liam James). More over, the book is open-minded in another respect. As the pref - ace states, while its author is some one ‘work ing, broadly speak ing, within the ana lyt i - cal tra di tion’ (p. 11), there are many points of con tact with phe nom en ol ogy. The reviews sug gest that in the early sev en ties, this may have been enough to con vince many that the book could be, at best, cou ra geously unfash ion able. So one of the pur - poses of this appre ci a tion is to put the record straight, as it were, and give due rec og ni - tion to what I think is a bril liant work. More impor tantly, how ever, I want to sug gest that there is much that can be gained from tak ing Evans’ views seri ously. The cen tral the sis of the book might be called the Expe ri en tial Self-Awareness claim:

(ES) Each of us has the expe ri ence of being a self.

The flaw in tra di tional approaches to per sonal iden tity, accord ing to Evans, is that they either ignore, or fal sify, the expe ri ence we have of being a self..

Abstract: Oversimplified conceptions of cognitive neuroscience regard the goal of this discipline as the localization of previously discovered and validated cognitive processes. Research however is showing how brain data goes far beyond this translation role, as it can be used to help in explaining human cognition. Knowing about the brain is useful in building and redefining taxonomies of the mind and also in describing the mechanisms by which cognitive phenomena proceed. The present paper takes the cognitive system of attention as a model research field to exemplify how biological knowledge can be used to advance the psychological theories explaining mental phenomena