Trends in Cognitive Sciences
OpinionBeing a Beast Machine: The Somatic Basis of Selfhood
Section snippets
Being Somebody
What does it mean to be a ‘self’? While some have argued that there may be no ‘thing’ that is a self [1], experiences of selfhood are among the most pervasive aspects of human consciousness. Perceptions of the external world come and go, but it is their relation to the experience of ‘being an experiencing subject’ that gives these perceptions meaning, value, and emotional relevance. How perceptual experiences of ‘being a self’ are constructed is therefore a key question for cognitive science.
Predictive Processing and Interoceptive Inference
Taking the body as the basis of selfhood highlights the importance of interoceptive sensory channels that convey information about the global physiological condition of the body 14, 24. Recently, interoception has been conceptualised within the framework of predictive processing 8, 16, 17, 25, 26. Just like predictive processing models of vision [27], models of interoceptive inference propose that interoceptive experiences result from probabilistic inference about the causes of viscerosensory
From Essential Variables to Instrumental (Control-Oriented) Inference
All living organisms attempt to maintain their physiological integrity in the face of danger and opportunity. Arguably, this is the basic evolutionary and functional imperative for having a brain. In the 1950s the cybernetician W. Ross Ashby formalised this idea in terms of second-order homeostasis of essential variables. In physiological settings, these variables correspond to quantities such as blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar levels, and the like that must remain within tight bounds
The Phenomenology of Being a Body
When considering the phenomenology of selfhood, it is not enough to say that emotional and self-related experiences are the way they are (and are different to, for example, visual experiences) because they emphasise predictions about interoceptive (rather than visual) signals. Instead, it is helpful to consider the nature of predictions associated with interoceptive inference, especially their control-oriented (instrumental) bias.
Concluding Remarks and Future Perspectives
Experiences of selfhood range from basic experiences of being and having a body, up to reflective self-awareness and the social self 8, 64 (Box 4). We have proposed that these experiences are grounded in processes of instrumental (control-oriented) interoceptive inference that underpin allostatic regulation of physiological essential variables. This perspective draws together perceptual inference schemes, such as predictive processing and active inference, with sensorimotor theory 42, 65 and
Acknowledgments
A.K.S. is grateful for support to the Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation that supports the work of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Azrieli Programme on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. M.T. is supported by the European Research Council Consolidator grant (ERC-2016-CoG-724537) under the FP7 for the INtheSELF project and by the NOMIS Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award. The authors are grateful to Hugo Critchley,
Glossary
- Active inference
- an extension of predictive processing, and part of the free energy principle, that says that agents can suppress prediction errors by performing actions to bring about sensory states in line with predictions 28, 32, 67.
- Allostasis
- a form of regulation that emphasises the process of achieving stability through change, for example, by the dynamic and anticipatory allocation of resources to ensure the stability of core regulatory targets. The precise relationship between allostasis
References (110)
Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self
Trends Cogn. Sci.
(2013)- et al.
The free-energy self: a predictive coding account of self-recognition
Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.
(2014) How do expectations shape perception?
Trends Cogn. Sci.
(2018)Active inference, homeostatic regulation and adaptive behavioural control
Prog. Neurobiol.
(2015)The free-energy principle: a rough guide to the brain?
Trends Cogn. Sci.
(2009)Computational psychosomatics and computational psychiatry: toward a joint framework for differential diagnosis
Biol. Psychiatry
(2017)Allostasis: a model of predictive regulation
Physiol. Behav.
(2012)- et al.
Redefining the role of limbic areas in cortical processing
Trends Cogn. Sci.
(2016) Behavioral, neural, and computational principles of bodily self-consciousness
Neuron
(2015)My body in the brain: a neurocognitive model of body-ownership
Neuropsychologia
(2010)
Multisensory integration across exteroceptive and interoceptive domains modulates self-experience in the rubber-hand illusion
Neuropsychologia
The free energy principle for action and perception: a mathematical review
J. Math. Psychol.
The Bayesian brain: the role of uncertainty in neural coding and computation
Trends Neurosci.
Interoceptive inference: from computational neuroscience to clinic
Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.
An insular view of anxiety
Biol. Psychiatry
Depersonalization: a selective impairment of self-awareness
Conscious. Cogn.
Autism, oxytocin and interoception
Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.
The felt presence of other minds: predictive processing, counterfactual predictions, and mentalising in autism
Conscious. Cogn.
The role of interoceptive inference in theory of mind
Brain Cogn.
Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”?
Cognition
Discrepancies between dimensions of interoception in autism: implications for emotion and anxiety
Biol. Psychol.
Computational psychiatry: a Rosetta Stone linking the brain to mental illness
Lancet Psychiatry
Full-body illusions and minimal phenomenal selfhood
Trends Cogn. Sci.
Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science
Trends Cogn. Sci.
Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see
Nature
Somatoparaphrenia: a body delusion. A review of the neuropsychological literature
Exp. Brain Res.
The neuroanatomy of asomatognosia and somatoparaphrenia
J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry
Minimal self-models and the free energy principle
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
What can body ownership illusions tell us about minimal phenomenal selfhood?
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science
Behav. Brain Sci.
The Predictive Mind
Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body
Curr. Opin. Neurobiol.
The cybernetic bayesian brain: from interoceptive inference to sensorimotor contingencies
Interoceptive predictions in the brain
Nat. Rev. Neurosci.
Active interoceptive inference and the emotional brain
Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci.
Mentalizing homeostasis: the social origins of interoceptive inference
Neuropsychoanalysis
Neurobehavioral evidence of interoceptive sensitivity in early infancy
Elife
Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature
Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind
Life as we know it
J. R. Soc. Interface
The Primordial Emotions: The Dawning of Consciousness
An interoceptive predictive coding model of conscious presence
Front. Psychol.
The interaction between interoceptive and action states within a framework of predictive coding
Front. Psychol.
Predictive coding in the visual cortex: a functional interpretation of some extra-classical receptive-field effects
Nat. Neurosci.
Handuch der phsyiologik Optik
Perceptions as hypotheses
Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci.
Attention, uncertainty, and free-energy
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Action and behavior: a free-energy formulation
Biol. Cybern.
Predictions not commands: active inference in the motor system
Brain Struct. Funct.
Cited by (164)
A computationally informed distinction of interoception and exteroception
2024, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsAn active inference perspective for the amygdala complex
2024, Trends in Cognitive SciencesWith hand on heart: A cardiac Rubber Hand Illusion
2024, Biological PsychologyA construct-first approach to consciousness science
2024, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsThe nature of consciousness in anaesthesia
2023, BJA OpenThe feasibility of artificial consciousness through the lens of neuroscience
2023, Trends in Neurosciences