Speaking of “experimental tasks”, back in the now-defunct “Jordan Peterson book 12 rules for life”, I proposed taking the Paramecium as a model for living in a chaotic world:
“Integrative modeling of Paramecium”? LOL! Right up your “search for consciousness” alley, no?
By the way, I think it’s marvelous that someone as “popular” as David Bentley Har,t, “a strong theist” speaks of the bond between “consciousness” and the divine [shades of Roy Clouser] in David Bentley Hart - The nature of consciousness [9:00] and, in another DBH and Closer to Truth video that I can’t find at the moment, the teleological “purposeful” behavior of Paramecia.
Just think of it: a single cell protist like the paramecium, which can be called “a living thing” that has purposeful behavior and … consciousness, albeit rudimentary/basic as it is.