in human-robot interaction

d with findings from psychological experiments. Yet, developing the single components, although crucial, is not enough. Rather, in addition, the interplay of the components has to be---somehow---controlled. Otherwise there would be no guarantee that the different components would work together, reasonably complementing each other, while some certain spatial problem is solved. Accordingly, to complete the computational model, some control mechanism has to be implemented. In particular, as with the components themselves, the control mechanism should be cognitively plausible. Thus, the question arises how such a control mechanism could be realized. The aim of my PhD work is to answer this question. 2 Necessity of Control: An Example There are several aspects of spatial information processing which require control of the three different components described in section 1. Engel, Bertel, and Barkowsky (2005), for instance, identify four processing steps relying on the consistent interplay

Controlled and automatic processing in animals

The self-prompting theory of consciousness holds that conscious perceptual experience occurs when non-routine perceptual data prompt the activation of a plan in an executive control system that monitors perceptual input. On the other hand, routine, non-conscious perception merely provides data about the world, which indicatively describes the world correctly or incorrectly. Perceptual experience instead involves data that are about the perceiver, not the world. Their function is that of imperatively prompting the perceiver herself to do something (hence "self-prompting") via the monitoring activities of her executive control system. The theory explains both phenomenal consciousness and "what it is like " to be perceptually conscious of an item. In addition, as applied to early perceptual attention, the self-prompting theory can explain how and why consciousness evolved.