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Reality monitoring decision policies and the slowness of consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2026

Megan A. K. Peters Open the ORCID record for Megan A. K. Peters [Opens in a new window]
Megan A. K. Peters*
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA megan.peters@uci.edu Department of Logic & Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine, USA Center for Theoretical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, University of California, Irvine, USA Program in Brain, Mind, & Consciousness, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Canada
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

Fleming and Michel suggest that conscious vision reflects a reality monitoring (RM) mechanism that evolved to separate planning from perception. Here, I critically examine the RM decision policy implied by the authors – a slow, winner-take-all strategy tagging only one first-order representation as “real.” Specifically, I explore how expectations about environmental or reality-tagging stability may mask alternative RM decision policies, with important implications for learning and the evolutionary emergence and function of consciousness.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 49 , 2026 , e186
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press

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