Our conscious experience of the world seems to go in lockstep with our attentional focus: We tend to see, hear, taste, and feel what we attend to, and vice versa. This tight coupling between attention and consciousness has given rise to the idea that these two phenomena are indivisible. In the late 1950s, the honoree of this special issue, Charles Eriksen, was among a small group of early pioneers that sought to investigate whether a transient increase in overall level of attention (alertness) in response to a noxious stimulus can be decoupled from conscious perception using experimental techniques. Recent years saw a similar debate regarding whether attention and consciousness are two dissociable processes. Initial evidence that attention and consciousness are two separate processes primarily rested on behavioral data. However, the past couple of years witnessed an explosion of studies aimed at testing this conjecture using neuroscientific techniques. Here we provide an overview of these and related empirical studies on the distinction between the neuronal correlates of attention and consciousness, and detail how advancements in theory and technology can bring about a more detailed understanding of the two. We argue that the most promising approach will combine ever-evolving neurophysiological and interventionist tools with quantitative, empirically testable theories of consciousness that are grounded in a mathematically formalized understanding of phenomenology.

我们对世界的有意识体验似乎与我们的注意力焦点一致：我们倾向于看到、听到、品尝和感觉我们所关注的事物，反之亦然。注意力和意识之间的紧密联系产生了这两种现象不可分割的想法。 20 世纪 50 年代末，本期特刊的获奖者查尔斯·埃里克森 (Charles Eriksen) 是一小群早期先驱者之一，他们试图研究对有害刺激做出反应时整体注意力（警觉性）水平的短暂增加是否可以与意识脱钩。使用实验技术进行感知。近年来，关于注意力和意识是否是两个可分离的过程也出现了类似的争论。注意力和意识是两个独立过程的初步证据主要依赖于行为数据。然而，过去几年见证了旨在利用神经科学技术检验这一猜想的研究激增。在这里，我们概述了这些以及关于注意力和意识的神经元关联之间的区别的相关实证研究，并详细介绍了理论和技术的进步如何能够带来对两者的更详细的理解。我们认为，最有前途的方法将把不断发展的神经生理学和干预主义工具与基于对现象学的数学形式化理解的定量的、可经验检验的意识理论结合起来。