Referring to my prior response - consciousness is the process of evaluation of the sensory stream and feeding back some level of planning resulting from the evaluation of the current sensory stream into part of the sensed stream, forming a loop of experience. The experience is weighted for relevance and recorded as personal biography.
Attention is an orienting mechanism, and I think it fair to say that this orientation is driven by several weighting factors. Some would be simple cues like motion and some are weighted simple evaluations based on internal need states and pre-programmed primitives at the limbic system level.
Intelligence - the quality of the processing of the sensory stream (internal and external) that ties that stream to prior learning in useful ways. The end result is the selection of the best action for the perceived situation. Some of this quality is speed, some of it is relevance, some is the ability to search through higher level connections dimensions to select the best internal elements in mental manipulation space. I think it is fair to say that the manipulations themselves are stored sequences based on experience and genetic programming; that would be what areas are connected to what, how heavy those connections are, and how fast and broadly the local maps sync to the presented representations.
Two different people may both experience the same thing. They may both orient on the same thing. One may recall more about the thing & sus out its pertinent facts and then tie it to relevant actions faster and finally select better choices based on that perception.
It really could be genetic as it’s partially based on connections and various parameters of neural network layers, IE. how much training promoters, how dense the dendritic mats, how robust the connecting loop between two maps, … It’s a massive list of variables and it would have to affect the functioning of the finished product.
And it must be partially cultural. The type of experience offered, the rituals learned such as study and exploration. The programming of patience and self-control, the learning and honing of skills. The training in good STEM tools. The connections may be there to provide the raw substrate but it has to be filled with something useful to recall as needed.
You have to take the sum of capabilities and programming to evaluate the entire machine.
These internal actions of perception and choice of appropriate action are commonly thought of as being intelligent.