Self-Identification and Sensori-Motor Rehearsal as Key Mechanisms of Consciousness

The paper addresses the nature and physiological mechanisms of awareness, conscious perception, generation of thoughts and discursive and imaginative thinking. lt shows that a high-frequency cyclic process of self-identification may underlie awareness and generation of thoughts. Self-identification is a collective neuronal activity process which forms an intensive specific excitation pattern in the cerebral cortex in response to external or internal input signals. This provides the best conditions for data categorisation by distributed long-term memory. The result of categorisation, a symbol or image, expresses their subjective sense. The symbolic mapping of data means the transiton from the physiological (objective) level to the mental (subjective) level Sensory awareness is produced by the processes of intensive mapping and explicit symbolic representation of the stimulus field in the sensory areas of the cortex. A thought is produced by the processes of intensive mapping and explicit symbolic representation of multiply connected coordinated neuronal activity of the brain in the higher associative areas of the cortex. Awareness and generation of thoughts have the same nature and similar physiological mechanisms. ,4, cyclic process of internal sensori-motor rehearsal may underlie discursive and imaginative thinking. Rehearsal is a low-frequency process and its contents are accessible to survey (introspection) by the high-frequency apparatus of self-identification which is built into the rehearsal loop. Our train of mental images, words or symbols is introspectable and controllable by means of the programming apparatus of the motor system. The interacting mechanisms of sensori-motor rehearsal and self-identification allow us form images, scenes and dialogues and watch and change them thus creating a mobile, controlled mental world.