For example, if I go into my room and something is moved, my brain will unconsciously realize and bring it into conscious awareness that something has changed. How does the brain detect these changes and decide it’s important enough to bring to awareness? What processes are happening when we notice changes?
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You can see your cerebral cortex as millions of little brains (organized like little columns, a bit like a honeycomb). Each little brain or cortical column is a model of part of your world. For example one cortical column could be a model of your school, or a model of your phone. This little column adds context to your experiences and fills in the gaps. It primes you to expect certain things in a certain situation.
When your experiences fit a model well, that cortical column is active and continually gets compared to your current experiences. Small differences get ignored and the model just gets updated. But when it clashes with something well established, like something important missing in your room, you get conscious of that difference.
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