When Does Valence Become Part of Conscious Experience? A Temporal Integration Account of Consciousness
Divya Shettigar
Department of Psychology
Faculty Supervisor: Ezequiel Morsella
Emotional valence—the positive or negative quality of experience—plays a central role in perception, memory, and behavior, yet the point at which it becomes consciously experienced remains unclear. Electrophysiological studies suggest that emotional information is processed rapidly and often unconsciously within the first 200 ms of stimulus processing while conscious awareness emerges later, around 300-400 ms. This temporal gap raises the question of how valence enters conscious experience. This project integrates findings from affective neuroscience with theoretical frameworks of consciousness and action, including Passive Frame Theory, the Memory Theory of Consciousness, the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP), and the Binding and Retrieval in Action Control (BRAC) framework. PRP and BRAC suggest that multiple features, such as perceptual inputs (e.g., shape, color), emotional valence, and memory signals are integrated within a shared temporal window to guide action. We propose that emotional valence becomes conscious not in isolation, but when it is bound with other perceptual features into a unified, memory-based representation. Together, these findings suggest that conscious valence reflects the temporal integration of multiple signals within the conscious field.