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Introduction
Research at the intersection of consciousness and cognition is entering an especially productive phase, with the potential to bridge their long-standing divide and open new experimental paths in both healthy and clinical applications with the support of Artificial Intelligence (AI). These advances may deepen understanding of mind–brain relationships while informing about clinical care and the broader pursuit of human flourishing. Higher-order theories analyse consciousness as a form of self-awareness. Some treat the requisite higher-order states as perception-like, and consequently classify the process of generating such states as a kind of inner perception or perhaps introspection. The most widely used representation model is focused on conscious experience as a prerequisite to cognition .
From Cognition to Consciousness
Cognition is the mental processing of information such as thinking memorizing and reasoning, while consciousness is the subjective awareness or experience of these processes. Cognition acts as the brain’s functional engine for solving problems, whereas consciousness is the ‘light’ that illuminates some of these experiences. They overlap but they are also distinct. Cognition can occur without consciousness while consciousness includes sentience beyond mere processing. Cognition often dictates the content of consciousness and what you are aware of while consciousness helps direct one’s attention for cognitive processing. For instance, you can drive a car as a mix of automatic cognition and conscious awareness, or you are engaged in daydreaming as a conscious mental state with a reduced cognitive focus on the road. Cognition processes inputs to produce outputs for decision-making while consciousness provides a sense of self and subjective experience. Consciousness often requires cognitive capabilities to function, but it is not identical to them. Theories of consciousness can be separated into those that see it as a cognitive aspect of cognitive functioning, and those that see consciousness as distinct from any kind of cognitive functioning. One version of this theory is the higher-order-thought theory of consciousness which posits a fundamental role for cognitive states explaining conscious experience. This distinctive cognitive ability accounts for what it is like to have a conscious experience.
The Problem with AI
Last year, a team of researchers led by MIT research scientist Nataliya Kosmyna, used Electroencephalograms (EEG) to monitor the brains of students while they were writing short and deliberately open-ended essays. They split the 54 participants into three groups: one was told to use ChatGPT, one could search for information using Google, and another had to rely on their own knowledge. Detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, each group was tasked with writing one essay per month for three months, while a subset of each group was asked to use ChatGPT for a fourth month. The researchers’ EEG findings were ominous: the students using ChatGPT consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioural levels. They found that those that used ChatGPT got lazier with each consecutive essay. In an interview Kosmyna told the BBC , that the EEG of the ChatGPT users showed that their brains were far less active in the areas corresponding to creativity and the processing of information. Participants using ChatGPT also struggled to quote their own essays, matching other research that found information recall could be negatively affected by the use of AI. The results were an early warning of an alarming phenomenon that researchers are only starting to explore that the widespread use of AI chatbots could seduce us to offload much of our thinking, slowly deteriorating our cognitive skills. Case in point, another recent study claimed to have found the first causal evidence, that relying on these tools can impair our intellectual abilities. Another recent paper published by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that participants who were asked to answer a variety of reasoning and knowledge-based questions and were given the option to use ChatGPT, predominately chose the chatbot to answer the question, resulting in what the scientists termed ‘cognitive surrender.’ Some users of AI are also complaining that the AI tools they use regularly are starting to erode their creativity and ability to articulate nuanced ideas.
A Psychologist’s View
Defining cognition is essential for understanding consciousness. Cognition is one of the most frequently used terms describing the brain and mental functioning. But what actually is it? Even experienced clinicians working in the field might have difficulty defining it precisely. There is not a single, universally agreed-upon definition. In humans, cognitive deficits can be observed in many conditions and mental states, for example as simple fatigue or drowsiness causing poor concentration or brain degeneration in patients affected by Alzheimer and other mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. The influential University of Cambridge professor of cognitive neuroscience, Trevor Robbins, has argued that most, if not all, of the major neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety are cognitive in nature. Cognition is considered one of three components of consciousness, together with emotion and free will. It was once assumed that these processes were always conscious and that cognition could not occur without awareness. However, by the end of the 19th century, Freud had formulated theories about unconscious mental processes, proposing that a significant portion of human behaviour is guided by internal processes outside of conscious awareness. And by the mid-20th century, growing evidence began to support the view that most cognitive processing occurs without reaching conscious awareness.
Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring, processing and storing of information as mental tools we require to think and to reason. Intelligence, in contrast, is the capacity to apply those tools effectively, for example to learn, solve problems, think abstractly, make decisions and adapt to new situations. In short, cognition is the set of processes for solving a specific problem, while intelligence defines how well those processes are used. Unlike consciousness, cognition does not inherently require subjective experience. Many forms of cognitive processing such as implicit decision making or sensory integration can and do occur without our awareness. Consciousness, on the other hand, deals with subjective experience or awareness and what it feels like to perceive, think, feel and to have a sense of one’s own identity. To put it simply, cognition is the mind’s processing engine, while consciousness is the experience of awareness that illuminates some, but not all, of those processes.
A Neuroscience View
Conscious experience in humans depends on brain activity, hence, neuroscience is a major contributor to explaining consciousness. To bridge the gap between brain activity and consciousness, we need neural data related to this activity, we need computational models to identify the principles that connect brain activity to conscious experience. A challenge for an objective science of consciousness is to dissect an essentially subjective phenomenon which is difficult to record. As investigators cannot experience another subject’s conscious states, they rely on the subject’s observable behaviour to track consciousness. Consciousness pervasively influences human behaviour and affects physiological responses, so other forms of behaviour and physiological data beyond introspective reports are required to provide a window on consciousness. This includes, but is not limited to, cognitive neuroscientists’ use of various neuroimaging methods to monitor the activity of tens of millions of neurons and the application of electrodes inserted into brain tissue to record neural activity. This has stirred many discussions and warnings from ethicists especially since Elon Musk launched a new system called ‘Neuralink’ to revolutionize the monitoring of brain activity.
Conclusion
It is undeniable that human cognition is closely related to experience. Yet many theories exist as to how AI-systems respond to experience. What is the reason why our cognitive abilities engage in visual and auditory information-processing, to provide us with visual or auditory experiences? It is widely agreed that experience arises from physical awareness, but we have no good explanation of why and how it arises. Why should information-processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet latest research shows that it does. If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. One response to these findings is to sharpen the targets of neuroscience by focusing on what researchers call the ‘structural feature’ of consciousness that changes content from unconsciousness to consciousness and what AI contributes to this process. Hence, far more research is required to understand how consciousness and cognition are related and how AI may contribute to this process.