Jack van Honk a1, Barak E. Morgan a2andDennis J. L. G. Schutter a1 a1 Experimental Psychology, Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, 3584CS Utrecht, The Netherlands a2 Department of Human Biology, Health Sciences Faculty, University of Cape Town, 7975 Cape Town, South Africa. j.vanhonk@fss.uu.nlbmorgan@cormack.uct.ac.zad.schutter@fss.uu.nl
Seeking to unlock the secrets of consciousness, neuroscientists have been studying neural correlates of sensory awareness, such as meaningless randomly moving dots. But in the natural world of species' survival, “raw feelings” mediate conscious adaptive responses. Merker connects the brainstem with vigilance, orientating, and emotional consciousness. However, depending on the brain's phylogenetic level, raw feeling takes particular forms.
