Predictive Processing (PP) posits that the brain is a prediction machine that minimizes “prediction errors” rather than passively processing sensory data. It continuously generates top-down models of the world and compares them against incoming sensory inputs. According to this framework, conscious experience is not a direct view of reality, but a controlled hallucination—the brain’s best guess or highly probable hypothesis about the causes of its sensory signals, refined in real time.

Other resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_principle

Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) posits that consciousness arises from localized feedback loops within sensory networks. While initial “feedforward” processing is rapid and entirely unconscious, conscious experience emerges when higher-level brain areas send signals back to lower-level areas, creating recurrent loops. RPT argues this localized interaction is sufficient for rich, phenomenological awareness, even if the information never reaches the frontoparietal workspace required for verbal report.

Attention Schema Theory (AST) posits that consciousness is the brain’s subjective internal model of its own attention. Just as the brain constructs a “body schema” to monitor and control physical movement, it builds an “attention schema”—a simplified, data-driven description of what it is currently focusing on. According to AST, the brain lacks the processing power to track its exact neural mechanics, so it misinterprets this invisible attentional process as a non-physical, magical property: conscious awareness.

Higher-Order Thought Theory (HOTT) posits that a mental state becomes conscious only when accompanied by a separate, higher-order thought about that state. According to HOTT, lower-order states—like a raw sensory perception or an emotion—are completely unconscious on their own. Consciousness arises exclusively when the mind generates a distinct, meta-representation that target-monitors the lower-order state, effectively representing oneself as being in that specific mental condition at that moment.

Other Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_theories_of_consciousness
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-higher/

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) posits that consciousness is a fundamental property of physical systems, determined by their capacity to integrate information. Consciousness is measured by phi which is the degree to which a system’s cause-effect power is irreducible to its individual parts. The theory asserts that consciousness exists wherever a system forms a unified, highly differentiated whole, and the specific quality of an experience is identical to the complex, multidimensional mathematical geometry of that integrated network.

Other Resources:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Integrated_information_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

Does Integrated Information Theory (IIT) feel too woo-woo to anyone?
byu/Prestigious_Hope2082 inconsciousness

Global Neuronal Workspace Theory posits that consciousness occurs when localized sensory signals cross an attentional threshold and “ignite” a central, long-distance frontoparietal network. Once inside this workspace, the information is globally broadcast back to otherwise isolated brain modules. This widespread broadcasting synchronizes the neural network, making the data simultaneously available to multiple systems—such as working memory, emotional evaluation, motor planning, and verbal report—creating a unified conscious experience.

Other Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_workspace_theory