title: Speculations on the evolution of awareness.
abstract: The "attention schema" theory provides one possible account of the biological basis of consciousness, tracing the evolution of awareness through steps from the advent of selective signal enhancement about half a billion years ago to the top-down control of attention, to an internal model of attention (which allows a brain, for the first time, to attribute to itself that it has a mind that is aware of something), to the ability to attribute awareness to other beings, and from there to the human attribution of a rich spirit world surrounding us. Humans have been known to attribute awareness to plants, rocks, rivers, empty space, and the universe as a whole. Deities, ghosts, souls--the spirit world swirling around us is arguably the exuberant attribution of awareness.
authors.affiliation: Princeton University.
authors.forename: Michael S A
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Graziano
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D012938:Social Perception