Incoming stimuli need to be stored temporarily in order to be able to compete for attention and conscious access. Individual as well as allied processes compete for access to the global workspace, striving to disseminate their messages to all other processes in an effort to recruit more cohorts and thereby increase the likelihood of achieving their goals. Since globally broadcast messages can evoke actions in receiving processes throughout the brain, the global workspace may be used to exercise executive control to perform voluntary actions. Other unconscious processes, operating in parallel with limited communication between them, can form coalitions which can act as input processes to the global workspace. GWT contents are proposed to correspond to what we are conscious of, and are broadcast to a multitude of unconscious cognitive brain processes, which may be called receiving processes. GWT involves a fleeting memory with a duration of a few seconds (much shorter than the 10–30 seconds of classical working memory). Baars argues that this is distinct from the concept of the Cartesian theater, since it is not based on the implicit dualistic assumption of "someone" viewing the theater, and is not located in a single place in the mind (in Blackmore, 2005). They shape the visible activities in the bright spot, but are themselves invisible. Behind the scenes, also in the dark, are the director (executive processes), stage hands, script writers, scene designers and the like. The audience is not lit up-it is in the dark (i.e., unconscious) watching the play. The bright spot reveals the contents of consciousness, actors moving in and out, making speeches or interacting with each other. In the "theater of consciousness" a "spotlight of selective attention" shines a bright spot on stage. GWT can be explained in terms of a "theater metaphor".
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