ReviewNature human behaviour2022
The ConTraSt database for analysing and comparing empirical studies of consciousness theories.
Review in Nature human behaviour, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Consciousness in the Brain: An Integrative Review of Contemporary Theories.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- An open-access multi-site fMRI dataset for investigating conscious visual perception.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Testing circuit-level theories of consciousness in humans.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- Against (theory-neutral) method (in consciousness science).Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- A data-driven approach to identifying and evaluating connectivity-based neural correlates of conscious visual perception.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Naturalizing perceptual experience: the explanatory power of probabilistic computation and the holographic solution.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- From consciousness to observation: rethinking what consciousness science explains.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Pluralism within limits: how to make the idea of multiple NCC kinds useful.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- On the role of theories in consciousness science.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- The evolutionary functions of consciousness.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Frontal Disorders and Consciousness: A Review.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2025Review
- Cortical evidence accumulation for visual perception occurs irrespective of reports.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Did you see it?eLife · 2025Article
- A science of consciousness beyond pseudo-science and pseudo-consciousness.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- Context-Sensitive Conscious Interpretation and Layer-5 Pyramidal Neurons in Multistable Perception.Brain and behavior · 2025Review
- The UnconTrust Database for Studies of Unconscious Semantic Processing and Attentional Allocation.Scientific data · 2025Article
- The multiple generator hypothesis of consciousness.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Methodological issues in consciousness research: theory comparison, the role of empirical evidence, and a replication crisis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding how consciousness arises from neural activity remains one of the biggest challenges for neuroscience. Numerous theories have been proposed in recent years, each gaining independent empirical support. Currently, there is no comprehensive, quantitative and theory-neutral overview of the field that enables an evaluation of how theoretical frameworks interact with empirical research. We provide a bird's eye view of studies that interpreted their findings in light of at least one of four leading neuroscientific theories of consciousness (N = 412 experiments), asking how methodological choices of the researchers might affect the final conclusions. We found that supporting a specific theory can be predicted solely from methodological choices, irrespective of findings. Furthermore, most studies interpret their findings post hoc, rather than a priori testing critical predictions of the theories. Our results highlight challenges for the field and provide researchers with an open-access website ( https://ContrastDB.tau.ac.il ) to further analyse trends in the neuroscience of consciousness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
35190711What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.