Working Memory / Executive Functions:

Jeffrey Gray, Consciousness - Creeping up on the hard problem

" 'Working memory' ... is a system which selects a particular piece of information that, unaided, would rapidly decay from short-term memory and maintains it in an active state by recursive rehearsal."

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"the executive function approach to consciousness generally takes its examples from those more private regions of consciousness in which we think, imagine, do mental arithmetic, solve problems, and so on."

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"the global availability to executive function of conscious experience contrasts with the 'encapsulation' of unconscious processes. The latter are specialists at doing just one thing well."

"global availability is purchased at the price of a sharp restriction - a bottleneck - on the range of processing to which consciousness can simultaneously be deployed."

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"conscious processing confers additional potential flexibility on behavior."

"the extra flexibility that conscious processing confers is that of inhibiting a prepotent response to a stimulus in favour of a different one. This is an important aspect of what is normally meant by the voluntary control of behavior or, in more dramatic language, 'free will'."

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"once an item is consciously perceived, it potentially becomes the target of a great variety of forms of action; ... This variety of potential forms of action is one of the hall-marks of voluntary behaviour."