Reality monitoring decision policies and the slowness of consciousness
Abstract
Fleming and Michel suggest that conscious vision reflects a reality monitoring (RM) mechanism that evolved to separate planning from perception. Here, I critically examine the RM decision policy implied by the authors - a slow, winner-take-all strategy tagging only one first-order representation as "real." Specifically, I explore how expectations about environmental or reality-tagging stability may mask alternative RM decision policies, with important implications for learning and the evolutionary emergence and function of consciousness.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Scientific Research and Philosophical Inquiry
Cognitive Science and Mapping
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Behavioral and Brain Sciences
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Volume
- 49
- Pages
- e186–e186
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Language
- EN