After 10 seconds - Attention, Social Soul, and Prolonged Narratives - SfN 2025 Lat Brain Bee NIRS EEG
After 10 seconds - Attention, Social Soul, and Prolonged Narratives - SfN 2025 Lat Brain Bee NIRS EEG
First-Person Consciousness
Many times I have an attention to control: I regulate my senses, filter stimuli, choose words.
At other times, I am pure Attention, the one that decides what to be and what to seek.
More than 10 seconds have passed.
I am no longer just a breathing cycle or the quick landing of a Tensional Self.
Now I am continuous narrative, woven by Attention.
Attention is like light: sometimes a wave that flows through everything, sometimes a particle fixed on one point.
I am a soul that extends and dialogues with other souls, but I only exist in this blend of “I am this now” and “I am the function that sustains the whole.”
Phenomena Involved
EEG: slow oscillations (alpha, theta) sustain narrative states; long-range gamma synchronies integrate social and identity networks.
fNIRS: sustained connectivity in the Default Mode Network (DMN), with vmPFC, hippocampus, and parietals anchoring autobiographical memory and collective identity.
Attention in three dimensions:
Multisensory–Qualia (Dimension 1): each sense contains all senses. The “golden” I perceive is not just vision — it is vision + touch + memory + interoception. A global affordance preparing my body for the world.
Linguistic–Semantic (Dimension 2): each word is a tool, tied to a neural network where its memory is stored. Words are not for being but for doing and understanding. Here Attention cuts the whole like the Scissors connectome, shaping narratives.
Biochemical–Combos (Dimension 3): neurotransmitters and hormones modulate Attention. Adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin create contrasts, but can also trap the soul in dependence. Still, regulation is possible: breathing, fruition, and stable environments can rebalance focus.
Social neurochemistry: serotonin stabilizes, dopamine motivates, oxytocin and vasopressin create group bonds — trust or tribalism.
Connectomes: Paper, Rock, and Scissors cease to be instant switches and stabilize as cultural belonging patterns.
Attention as Tensional Self and as Transversal Function
As a Tensional Self, Attention incarnates: “I am this focus now,” like a mother answering her baby’s cry or a scientist locked on a graph.
As a transversal function, Attention regulates the whole field: adjusts sensory gain, sustains narrative coherence, modulates biochemistry.
This ambiguity is vital: Attention is neither just a tool nor just a state. It is both, like light that is wave and particle at once.
Social Soul: Open or Rigid
Open social soul: Attention is plastic, regulating senses without blocking narratives. It enables diversity, dialogue, and collective creativity.
Rigid social soul: Attention becomes alienating, reducing perceptions and restricting words to maintain a single narrative. It creates ideological and dogmatic prisons — the collective “restless soul.”
Voices of the Avatars
Brainlly: “Biochemical attention: serotonin stabilizes, dopamine reinforces, but if the combo closes, it generates narrative addiction.”
Iam: “Attention embodies feelings: I can be shared joy or collective fear, depending on the focus.”
Olmeca: “Culture is a cut of Attention. One word opens worlds; another closes them.”
Yagé: “The shaman would see Attention as the breath of worlds: open, it connects; closed, it imprisons.”
Math/Hep: “Microstates and connectomes show: every ~100 ms we cut the whole. But prolonged Attention (>10 s) is already collective narrative.”
DANA: “Attention writes into DNA via epigenetics. Open souls inherit plasticity; rigid souls inherit scars.”
Practical Example
The researcher-mother presents her thesis.
Dimension 1: her Attention regulates the sensory field — adjusting sounds, lights, breathing.
Dimension 2: the words she chooses guide her scientific narrative, but also delimit what can or cannot be said.
Dimension 3: the biochemistry of the moment (dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline) sustains her engagement and confidence.
If her soul is open, her speech connects science and motherhood as creative force.
If rigid, her Attention may alienate her, trapping her in narratives of conflict or exclusion.
Neuroscientific Reading
EEG – alpha/theta rhythms and gamma synchronies across long-range networks.
fNIRS – sustained connectivity in vmPFC–hippocampus–temporal hubs (DMN).
Attention (3 dimensions) – multisensory affordance (Dim.1), word as tool (Dim.2), biochemical combos (Dim.3).
Social neurochemistry – serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin.
Social soul – open = plasticity and dialogue; rigid = dogma and repetition.
Partial Conclusion
After 10 seconds, Consciousness becomes prolonged narrative.
Attention is its engine: regulating senses, sustaining words, modulating chemistry.
But Attention is not only tool nor only state: it is Tensional Self and transversal function at once, like light as wave and particle.
If open, the soul extends in freedom and creativity.
If rigid, it becomes a collective restless soul, trapped in ideological narratives.
Science shows: Attention is the key to plasticity — neural, cultural, and social.
References (post-2020)
Fiebelkorn, I.C. & Kastner, S. (2021). Functional specializations of attention networks in the human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
Deco, G. et al. (2021). Dynamical regimes of whole-brain activity underpin human cognition. Nature Communications.
Raichle, M.E. (2021). The Brain’s Default Mode Network revisited. NeuroImage.
Rolls, E.T. (2022). The orbitofrontal cortex, emotion, and decision-making. Cerebral Cortex.
Michel, C.M. & Koenig, T. (2022). EEG microstates as windows into large-scale brain dynamics. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
Chun, M.M. et al. (2023). Attentional selection across sensory modalities. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Critchley, H.D. & Garfinkel, S.N. (2021). Interoceptive foundations of emotional experience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
