Baars explains that useful metaphors in science “should help organize existing evidence, yield testable hypotheses and suggest conceptual clarifications” (p. 1115). Baars believes the theater metaphor, characteristic of the global workspace (GW) model fulfills these requirements. I think the theater metaphor, particularly the role of the director, however, is somewhat confusing and not entirely helpful in understanding attention and consciousness. More specifically, I think Baar’s theater metaphor fails to capture an aspect of attention and consciousness, and it also fails to accurately capture the concept if a stage director

The spotlight metaphor is prima facie appealing. It is a metaphor commonly used (see Gopnik’s reply to Block for an example) and is an intuitively appealing description of attention. When you attend to something, it is as though the object of attention is highlighted. The stage metaphor incorporates this particular sub-metaphor well and, additionally, highlights the cooperative (or even competitive) nature of brain function.

That being said, I think the stage metaphor, in general, suggests a counter-intuitive view of attention. Stage productions tend to be highly planned. Each lighting cue is worked out in advance, each exit and each entrance is timed and rehearsed (this is not always the case, but it often is). Consciousness and attention appear to be much more dynamic. The “spotlight” can switch suddenly from one object (a book) to another one (a loud noise) for a variety of reasons.

This dissimilarity is further demonstrated in Baars’ discussion of the stage director. He explains that the “left-brain “narrative-interpreter” receives its own sensory inflow from the right visual field, so that it “observes” a conscious flow of visual information” (p. 1119). He continues saying that “each interpretive system can control its own voluntary motor functions and thus there is an obvious analogy with a stage director, who observes events on stage and orders changes where needed” (p. 1119-1120). The director, though, does a great deal of his work in advance. The director guides a production (in various ways) to meet his particular vision of the play. This would include deciding what the lighting would be like and so on. The situation Baars is describing sounds more like an orchestra conductor or even a head coach or manager whose role is more dynamic and unfolds in real time.

These ambiguities and disanalogies make it difficult to imagine exactly what determines where the spotlight is directed. Does the audience of experts decide or does the director, who is perhaps more like a conductor, direct the spotlight to whatever the audience might find interesting or important? I think the theater metaphor needs some modification (some modifications are made in Newman et al.) to be useful in investigating attention and consciousness.