UPDATED WORKS ON GLOBAL WORKSPACE THEORY: 1988 - 2013
A coherent effort to organize a large and growing body of scientific evidence about conscious brains.
Global Workspace Dynamics (GWD) is the most current version of GWT - attempting to take into account the complexities of the living brain. These updated works trace the beginnings of GWT/GWD through the continued rise of brain evidence and psychological understanding.
GWT provides a widely used framework for conscious and unconscious brain events, a set of explicit assumptions that can be tested, as many of them have been.
How can we understand the evidence?
The best answer today is a ‘global workspace architecture,’ first developed by cognitive modeling groups led by Alan Newell and Herbert A. Simon. The term “global workspace” comes from Artificial Intelligence, where it refers to a fleeting memory domain that allows for cooperative problem-solving by large collections of specialized programs. Some brain implications of the theory have been explored.
Global Workspace Theory (GWT) began with this question: “How does a serial, integrated and very limited stream of consciousness emerge from a nervous system that is mostly unconscious, distributed, parallel and of enormous capacity?” Global Workspace (GW) theory provides the most widely used framework to date for our rapidly accumulating body of evidence. It is consistent with our current knowledge, and can be enriched to include other aspects of human experience.
Stan Franklin - LIDA: Cognitive Architecture's Computational Implementation of GWT
Our colleague and friend Stan Franklin and his many co-workers have built on GWT to sketch out a more general theory of cognition.
Dehaene-Changeux Model (DCM): Global Neuronal Workspace is Part of GWT
Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeux in Paris have developed experimentally testable models and made further testable claims about the brain basis of visual consciousness.
Global Workspace Theory from soup to nuts.
Global Workspace Theory is a widely used framework for the role of conscious and unconscious experiences in the functioning of the brain, as I first suggested in 1983.
Empirical progress since the 1980s has been spectacular. It therefore seems timely to republish successive stages of evidence and theory of the brain’s global workspace. They cover thirty years during which consciousness re-emerged from decades of neglect. Evidence and ideas are still coming in, but our fundamental evidence is as solid as ever. In traditional scientific fashion, our basic evidence remains stable while ideas continue to evolve.
Books by Baars
Acclaimed Books
Peer Reviewed Papers + Published Articles
Citations
Praise for Baars' book, ON CONSCIOUSNESS: Science & Subjectivity
A bird's eye view of the brain with many exciting insights of its complex workings. An enjoyable read by an expert authority.
- GYÖRGY BUZSÁKI, MD, PHD
Author of Rhythms of the Brain; The Brain from Inside Out (OUP)
About Bernie Baars
Bernard J. Baars, PhD
Bernie Baars is Co-founder & Editor in Chief of the Society for MindBrain Sciences, a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA., and currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global workspace theory, a theory of human cognitive architecture and consciousness.
Bernie is recipient of the 2019 Hermann von Helmholtz Life Contribution Award by the International Neural Network Society recognizing work in perception proven to be paradigm changing and long lasting.
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#27 – Is Willpower Like Muscle Power? with Roy F. Baumeister
EXPLORING THE SCIENCE OF EGO DEPLETION & WILLPOWER WITH PSYCHOLOGIST ROY F. BAUMEISTER Episode 27 features Professor Roy Baumeister, one of the world’s most prolific and influential psychologists, known for his work on the self, social rejection,...
#26 – SMELL, TASTE & CONSCIOUSNESS: A Special Interview with Neurobiologist, Dr. Stuart Firestein.
The olfactory system detects molecular odorants. It has both similarities and differences from the other senses. We often talk about five major senses: vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Actually, there are more than five, like pain, sensory...
#25 – Human Consciousness & AI: What Does the Future Hold? A Special Interview with Dr. Susan Schneider
Dr. Susan Schneider is Founding Director of FAU's Center for the Future Mind, and co-director of the MPCR Lab at FAU's new Gruber Sandbox, a large facility which builds AI systems drawing from neuroscience research and philosophical developments.For the last 200,000...
#24 – “The Conscious Brain Evolved” with Jay Giedd, David Edelman & Mark Mitton
The home of the late Nobel Laureate, Gerald Edelman, is the setting for an elevated discussion on human consciousness among three neuroscientists and a professional magician. Bernie Baars opens the discussion by asking what is on top of everyone’s...
#23 – Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and Prefrontal Cortex: Recent Developments (Baars et al., 2021)
“One of the major errors in the Raccah et al. (2021) paper is that Raccah and his co-authors looked at the different brain regions as separate “neighborhoods,” without taking into consideration the functional interactions between its different parts.” - Bernard...
#22: Consciousness Has an Integrative Function
“Can consciousness be seen as the key to understanding our surroundings and organizing our actions?" - David Edelman, PhD, Neuroscientist and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College Episode 22 of our podcast...