@article{142801,
  keywords = {Animals, Humans, Biological Evolution, Brain, Models, Neurological, Attention, Social Perception, Awareness, Consciousness},
  author = {Michael SA Graziano},
  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. },
  year = {2014},
  journal = {Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience},
  volume = {26},
  pages = {1300-1304},
  issn = {1530-8898},
  url = {https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jocn_a_00623},
  doi = {10.1162/jocn_a_00623},
  language = {eng},
}