MEM as an Extension of Recurrent Processing Theory: Toward a Motivational Account of Consciousness
Abstract
Victor Lamme's Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) proposes that the feedforward sweep (FFS) can extract and categorize visual features unconsciously, while conscious vision emerges through recurrent processing and feedback interactions across representational levels. The Motivated Emotional Mind (MEM) model, developed by Wiesław L. Galus and Janusz A. Starzyk, retains this core principle but embeds it in an embodied architecture integrating multilayer networks, semi-hierarchical semblions, receptors, effectors, allostasis, emotional valuation, and memory-based sensory reconstruction. This article examines the substantive but limited relationship between RPT and MEM. While RPT explains the role of recurrence in perceptual organization and the transition to conscious vision, MEM addresses the content of recurrent processing, its grounding in receptor activity and bodily states, its interaction with memory and action, and the possible role of reconstructed sensory representations in phenomenal experience. Particular emphasis is placed on secondary perception: the top-down reconstruction of sensory and interoceptive maps through which memories, mental imagery, dreams, hallucinations, feelings, and observed scenarios acquire experiential form. MEM thus associates phenomenality not merely with recurrent activity or reportability, but with the reconstruction of modality-specific, receptor-grounded sensory and bodily content. The article also presents the mathematical model of MEM, formalizing re-entrant processing, representational competition, allostasis, affect, curiosity, procedural gaps, and action selection. We conclude that MEM can be viewed as an embodied and motivational extension of RPT. However, its distinctive claims, particularly the sufficiency of secondary perception for phenomenality and the proposed microstructure of semblions, remain hypotheses requiring causal testing.
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BibTeX
@misc{galus2026extension,
title = {{MEM as an Extension of Recurrent Processing Theory: Toward a Motivational Account of Consciousness}},
author = {Wiesław L. Galus and Janusz A. Starzyk},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.04057},
eprint = {2610.04057},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.04057},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - MEM as an Extension of Recurrent Processing Theory: Toward a Motivational Account of Consciousness
AU - Wiesław L. Galus
AU - Janusz A. Starzyk
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.04057
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.04057
AB - Victor Lamme's Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) proposes that the feedforward sweep (FFS) can extract and categorize visual features unconsciously, while conscious vision emerges through recurrent processing and feedback interactions across representational levels. The Motivated Emotional Mind (MEM) model, developed by Wiesław L. Galus and Janusz A. Starzyk, retains this core principle but embeds it in an embodied architecture integrating multilayer networks, semi-hierarchical semblions, receptors, effectors, allostasis, emotional valuation, and memory-based sensory reconstruction. This article examines the substantive but limited relationship between RPT and MEM. While RPT explains the role of recurrence in perceptual organization and the transition to conscious vision, MEM addresses the content of recurrent processing, its grounding in receptor activity and bodily states, its interaction with memory and action, and the possible role of reconstructed sensory representations in phenomenal experience. Particular emphasis is placed on secondary perception: the top-down reconstruction of sensory and interoceptive maps through which memories, mental imagery, dreams, hallucinations, feelings, and observed scenarios acquire experiential form. MEM thus associates phenomenality not merely with recurrent activity or reportability, but with the reconstruction of modality-specific, receptor-grounded sensory and bodily content. The article also presents the mathematical model of MEM, formalizing re-entrant processing, representational competition, allostasis, affect, curiosity, procedural gaps, and action selection. We conclude that MEM can be viewed as an embodied and motivational extension of RPT. However, its distinctive claims, particularly the sufficiency of secondary perception for phenomenality and the proposed microstructure of semblions, remain hypotheses requiring causal testing.
ER -