global workspace theory

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a cognitive and neuroscientific theory of consciousness proposed by Bernard Baars and developed in neural terms by Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeux, proposing that consciousness arises when information is broadcast from a central workspace — implemented in a network of prefrontal and parietal neurons — to specialised processors throughout the brain; the theory draws an analogy to a theatre in which a bright spotlight of conscious attention selects content from the darkened auditorium of unconscious processing and broadcasts it globally; global workspace theory makes specific predictions about the neural signatures of conscious access, including the late cortical ignition visible in EEG and the non-linear threshold of conscious report, and has been tested extensively in perceptual masking and inattentional blindness paradigms