Citation

Zelazo PD. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2004; 8(1): 12-17.

Affiliation

=Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada. zelazo@psych.utoronto.ca

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

14697398

Abstract

Developmental data suggest that the growth of executive function in childhood can be understood in terms of the development of consciousness. According to the "levels of consciousness" (LOC) model, there are age-related increases in the highest degree of self-reflection or LOC that children are able to muster in response to situational demands. These increases in LOC with age have consequences for the quality of experience, the potential for recall, the complexity of children's explicit knowledge structures, and the possibility of the conscious control of thought, emotion, and action. The hierarchical LOCs identified by this analysis are also useful for understanding the complex structure of conscious experience in adults, and they provide a metric for measuring the level at which consciousness is operating in specific situations.

Language: en