Philosophy Program, Graduate Center, The City University of New York New York, NY, USA.
Front Psychol. 2014 Feb 5;5:62. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00062. eCollection 2014.
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.
尽管许多对气味刺激的反应是在没有嗅觉信息被有意识地处理的情况下进行的，但有些嗅觉行为需要有意识的信息处理。我将在这里对比嗅觉信息被有意识地处理的情况和无意识地处理的情况。这种对比分析表明，当生物体面临有许多行为选择的任务时，就需要有意识的信息处理。因此，我提出，有意识的信息处理的进化功能是指导生物体在需要在许多可能的反应之间做出选择的情况下的行为。
