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This paper critically assesses whether the Motivated Emotional Mind (MEM) model can replicate the functional explanations of Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) for access consciousness and offer novel insights into phenomenal consciousness. Through a comparative analysis of 25 publications, the study finds that core GNWT phenomena like threshold dynamics and information recurrence are compatible with both theories, challenging GNWT's exclusivity. While MEM offers a broader integrative hypothesis, its unique explanatory advantage for phenomenal consciousness remains a testable hypothesis requiring quantitative validation.
Most classical findings attributed to Global Neuronal Workspace Theory are equally explainable by the Motivated Emotional Mind model, suggesting GNWT's exclusivity is overstated.
Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) is one of the most extensively developed empirical research programmes on access consciousness. By contrast, the Motivated Emotional Mind (MEM) model proposes an embodied, semi-hierarchical associative memory in which representational selection, action, recurrent reconstruction of modality-specific fields, interoception, and valence form a single functional cycle. This article assesses whether MEM mechanisms can reproduce the functions explained by GNWT and whether they yield additional hypotheses concerning phenomenal quality. We first reconstruct the origins, mechanistic core, strengths, and limitations of GNWT, and then present the origins of MEM, the architecture of semblions, and the FFS-RP cycle. In the comparative analysis, we distinguish functional similarity from mechanistic identity and empirical equivalence. We examine 25 publications: twelve canonical studies of GNWT or critiques thereof, and thirteen studies of perception, interoception, and affect. For each study, we juxtapose the GNWT interpretation with a possible MEM reinterpretation. The findings indicate that most classical effects - including threshold dynamics, maintenance, recurrence, long-range connectivity, and flexible use of information - are compatible with both theories. This compatibility weakens the claim that the GNWT interpretation is exclusive, but does not yet provide theory-specific support for MEM. MEM advances a broader hypothesis integrating access, modality-specific reconstruction, bodily state, affect, and action; its potential explanatory advantage nevertheless remains a hypothesis requiring preregistered quantitative tests. We propose a series of interventions designed to dissociate sensory re-entry, global availability, report, and interoceptive valuation.
