ABSTRACT
These reflections extend the approach taken in Rumelhart’s chapter (25, this volume) on emotion to the nature of consciousness and explicit memory. In this chapter I argue that a cognitive neuroscience perspective provides a framework in which we can account for the principal aspects of consciousness and explicit memory stressed by Kihlstrom (chapter 24, this volume), but that allows us to consider the question of the centrality of the concept of self in a somewhat different light. I then consider Mandler’s (chapter 26, this volume) search for the functions of consciousness, and suggest how it may be useful to think of consciousness, not so much as a separate faculty with its own functions, but as a manifestation of certain properties of overall system function. Finally, I comment on emotion and its relation to consciousness and memory, relating the central theme of Rumelhart’s chapter to issues raised both by Kihlstrom and Mandler.
