Although many responses to odorous stimuli are mediated without olfactory information being consciously processed, some olfactory behaviors require conscious information processing. I will here contrast situations in which olfactory information is processed consciously to situations in which it is processed non-consciously. This contrastive analysis reveals that conscious information processing is required when an organism is faced with tasks in which there are many behavioral options available. I therefore propose that it is the evolutionary function of conscious information processing to guide behaviors in situations in which the organism has to choose between many possible responses. © 2014 Keller.
CITATION STYLE
Keller, A. (2014). The evolutionary function of conscious information processing is revealed by its task-dependency in the olfactory system. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(FEB). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00062
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