Consciousness and the Social Brain

they are evidently unable to lead to awareness.
    One common interpretation is that primary visual cortex
creates
awareness. Perhaps something in its circuitry, in the way its neurons pass information among each other, or in its chemical composition or electrical oscillations, produces awareness as a side product. Perhaps awareness is an aura that rises up from primary visual cortex.
    The attention schema theory provides an alternative explanation. The primary visual cortex does not, itself, create awareness. Instead, visual information that is computed in it and flows from it is necessary, either directly or indirectly via some cortical middleman, for the
V
part in
S
+
A
+
V
. Other brain systems compute the
A
part and the
S
part. All of this information must be bound together to form the basis for reportable visual consciousness. In the attention schema theory, disrupting visual cortex may block visual information from reaching awareness, but it does not disrupt the mechanism of awareness itself. One must look elsewhere in the brain to find the mechanism of awareness—to find the attention schema.
Looking Outside Visual Cortex for Visual Awareness

    Both blindsight and binocular rivalry are intriguing phenomena. They are clearly related to consciousness and clearly traceable to specific events in the brain. But the research tends to get bogged down when it comes to interpretation. What, specifically, can be inferred about consciousness from the experimental results?
    The problem is that the results do not narrow the possibilities very much. They are consistent with a large range of theories. At least the results set some experimental limits. Any plausible theory of consciousness must be consistent with them. My point in this chapter is that the attention schema theory passes this particular test. It is not ruled out by the standard findings on binocular rivalry or on blindsight. The data are at least not inconsistent with the theory.
    But we can do better. We do not need to settle for data that are not inconsistent with the theory. We can find more stringent tests. We can look for experimental results that are difficult to explain
except
by invoking the attention schema theory. We can search for patterns in the data that are specifically predicted by the theory.
    As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, in my view too much of the work on consciousness has focused on how visual information, processed in visual areas of the brain, might result in visual consciousness. Certainly both the blindsight literature and the binocular rivalry literature fall into this category. Yet if the attention schema theory is correct, then these previous approaches are looking in the wrong parts of the brain. We should look outside the visual system to find brain areas that might compute the attention schema itself, the awareness construct, the
A
part of
S
+
A
+
V
. The next chapter considers whether anything like the attention schema can be found in the neuronal machinery responsible for social perception.

16
Simulating Other Minds

    Humans are social animals. We are experts at navigating a complex social world. But how is social intelligence built into the brain?
    Neuroscientists have proposed two main views. The first view, summarized in the previous chapters, is that social capability depends on an expert brain system. That brain system includes the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), the superior temporal sulcus (STS), and many other interconnected regions. This brain system can compute useful, predictive models of other people’s minds. The main evidence to support this view is that the same, consistent set of brain areas becomes active when people engage in a great variety of social thinking.
    The second view of how social capability is built into the brain is called simulation theory. In simulation theory, social perception is essentially the result of empathy. We have an innate, direct understanding of ourselves, of our own motives, emotions, and experiences. We understand other people’s minds by reference to our own internal experiences. In effect, we put ourselves in other people’s shoes.
    These two views of social perception, the expert system view and the simulation view, are often considered to be rival explanations.
    In the previous chapters I discussed the expert system view and how it may relate to the attention schema theory. If the brain does compute something like an attention schema, it may do so throughits