Didier Grandjean, David Sander & Klaus R. Scherer (2008), Consciousness and Cognition 17(2):484–495 — DOI-10.1016/j.concog.2008.03.019
Key takeaways
- The thesis (abstract, p. 484). “Consciousness of emotional reactions emerges when lower levels of processing are not sufficient to cope with the event and regulate the emotional process, particularly when the degree of synchronization between the components reaches a critical level and duration”.
- Feeling monitors (p. 486). “Subjective experience serves a monitoring function, integrating all information about the continuous patterns of change in all other components, as well as their coherence, and then building an integrative conscious representation.” Only part of that representation (circle B of the Venn diagram) becomes conscious.
- Levels and stopping (p. 489). Appraisal runs in parallel at several levels and stops at a conclusive result, so “higher, more costly—and more conscious levels—are only recruited in cases in which lower-level processing does not achieve conclusive results.”
- Sequence (pp. 489–491). “Novelty > Intrinsic pleasantness > Goal/Task relevance > Goal conduciveness > Coping potential > Compatibility with internal and external norms or standards”. EEG evidence: novelty and intrinsic pleasantness early and automatic, goal conduciveness later, “on a conscious, controlled, and possibly propositional level” (p. 491).
- Why synchrony brings consciousness (p. 492). Lasting high synchronization “is an expensive operation for the organism’s resources and can probably not be regulated automatically”, so regulation such as reappraisal must take over, and it needs “high-level representational operations”.
- Two mechanisms (p. 493), “necessary and sufficient”: synchronization of the components, and neuronal synchronization, local and distant, that integrates their representations into a conscious feeling.
- Measures (pp. 488–489). EEG gamma and beta activity differs between episodes with and without a reported feeling (Dan Glauser and Scherer 2008). Phase coherence between assemblies (Fries’s communication through coherence) predicts amygdala–orbitofrontal synchrony.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-23 for the record’s candidate condition for felt valence (CLAIM-439). NOTE-1115 sets out where Grandjean et al.’s account rivals it and where it agrees. In short: it agrees that feeling is a representation used by further regulation; it differs on what triggers the representation (the regime’s own cost) and on what is represented (coherence, not which ordering wins).
No instruction for machine-learning practice; nothing here belongs in the anthology.
The copy. It was read from a posting by the Geneva E3 Lab, not by the publisher. The owner accepted that posting as a lawful copy on 2026-10-23.