The Three-Level Structure of Consciousness: A Functional Model of Consciousness

Abstract: This paper proposes the "Three-Level Structure of Consciousness" (TLSC), a model of consciousness closely related to Evolutionary Valence Labeling Theory (EVLT) and the Memory Hierarchy Comparison Mechanism (MHCM). The model divides conscious activity into three functional levels: the input level, the experience level, and the reflective level. The input level receives and preliminarily processes sensory signals and remains unconscious at all times; the experience level integrates multimodal input into unified experience episodes and simultaneously generates basic valence and a core sense of self; the reflective level reprocesses experiential content, forms the narrative self, and coordinates long-term behavior. The three levels correspond respectively to sensory memory, short-term memory/working memory, and long-term memory, and are driven by a unified source of dynamics provided by MHCM. The model is primarily a functional structural division—it bears a correspondence to brain regions, but takes functional division of labor as its core, with the aim of providing a clear and unified descriptive language for consciousness research. The paper also discusses the model's explanatory power for the self, attention, the unconscious, and psychopathological phenomena, and offers testable predictions.

Keywords: Three-Level Structure of Consciousness; Evolutionary Valence Labeling Theory; input level; experience level; reflective level; Memory Hierarchy Comparison Mechanism; valence labeling; experience episode