ABSTRACT
T. Shallice's review of consciousness research concerns itself with phenomena related to attentional mechanisms: blindsight, knowledge without awareness, the split brain, and dual consciousness. Consciousness is essentially an emergent property of the brain's attentional networks, especially the anterior cingulate cortex. Olds describes the brain as an information processor, citing Shannon's information theory to indicate that any information system tends to degrade. Olds credits Peterfreund, Michael Basch, and Rosenblatt and Thickstun for the early impetus to recast psychoanalytic theory based on neuropsychological understandings of attention and information processing. Olds believes that one of the key functions of consciousness is to prevent information degradation. A major first step, however, in linking consciousness to adaptation lies in explaining more exactly what consciousness provides the mental apparatus. According to D. Rapaport, Freud viewed consciousness as a matter of the distribution of attention cathexis, a perspective that remains in vogue.
