Conscious contents as reflexive processes: Evidence from the habituation of high-level cognitions

Reflexes are often insuppressible, predictable, and susceptible to external control. In contrast, conscious thoughts have been regarded as whimsical, ‘offline,’ and shielded from external control. Recent advances suggest that conscious thoughts are more reflex-like and susceptible to external control than previously thought. In one paradigm, high-level conscious thoughts (subvocalizations) are triggered by external control, as a function of external stimuli and experimenter-induced action sets. It has been hypothesized that these conscious contents are activated involuntarily and in a reflex-like manner. If such is the case, then these activations should possess a well-known property of the reflex: habituation. Accordingly, we found that involuntary high-level cognitions (subvocalizations) habituated (i.e., were less likely to arise) after repeated stimulation. As in the case of the habituation of a reflex, this novel effect was stimulus-specific. We discuss the implications of this finding for theories about consciousness and about psychopathological phenomena involving undesired, involuntary cognitions.     

The role of inhibitory control and ADHD symptoms in the occurrence of involuntary thoughts about the past and future: An individual differences study

In everyday life, people often experience involuntary thoughts about their personal past and future events in response to incidental cues in the environment. Yet, despite the abundance of such cues, our consciousness is not constantly flooded by these involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and involuntary future thoughts (IFTs). The main goal of the present study was to further investigate the possibility that cognitive inhibitory control keeps these involuntary cognitions at bay. To test this inhibition hypothesis, we conducted a large-scale study (n = 157) in which groups of participants with different levels of inhibitory control (low, medium, high) and individuals with ADHD spectrum symptoms were engaged in a laboratory vigilance task in which the frequency of IFTs and IAMs was assessed. Contrary to predictions, although participants across groups differed significantly in terms of their individual inhibitory control capacity, the number of IFTs and IAMs reported during the vigilance task was comparable. In addition, individuals with the ADHD spectrum symptoms did not report more spontaneous thoughts compared to other groups. Together, these findings lend little support for the idea that inhibition is a key mechanism that regulates the occurrence of IAMs and IFTs in everyday life. Other possible mechanisms and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Involuntary autobiographical memories in and outside the laboratory: How different are they from voluntary autobiographical memories?

In two studies, we compared the characteristics and retrieval times of involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory under controlled laboratory conditions. A new laboratory task of involuntary autobiographical memories involved detecting vertical lines in a stream of stimuli with horizontal lines (an undemanding vigilance task) and recording any involuntary memories during the session. The majority of these memories were reported as being triggered by irrelevant cue phrases presented on the screen. Voluntary autobiographical memories were sampled via a standard word-cue method in Session 2. The results showed that involuntary memories were more specific and were retrieved significantly faster than voluntary memories. They were also more likely to be triggered by negative cues, whereas cue valence did not have any effect on the number of voluntary memories. Furthermore, laboratory involuntary memories did not differ from naturalistic involuntary memories recorded in a diary by the same participants (Study 2). Taken together, these results have important implications for current theories of autobiographical memory, and they open up interesting avenues for future research.     

Conscious thoughts from reflex-like processes: A new experimental paradigm for consciousness research

The contents of our conscious mind can seem unpredictable, whimsical, and free from external control. When instructed to attend to a stimulus in a work setting, for example, one might find oneself thinking about household chores. Conscious content thus appears different in nature from reflex action. Under the appropriate conditions, reflexes occur predictably, reliably, and via external control. Despite these intuitions, theorists have proposed that, under certain conditions, conscious content resembles reflexes and arises reliably via external control. We introduce the Reflexive Imagery Task, a paradigm in which, as a function of external control, conscious content is triggered reliably and unintentionally: When instructed to not subvocalize the name of a stimulus object, participants reliably failed to suppress the set-related imagery. This stimulus-elicited content is considered ‘high-level’ content and, in terms of stages of processing, occurs late in the processing stream. We discuss the implications of this paradigm for consciousness research.     

Individual differences in recognising involuntary autobiographical memories: Impact on the reporting of abstract cues

This study examined individual differences in the ability to recognise involuntary autobiographical memories. We hypothesised that individuals may not always recognise involuntary memories which are cued by abstract experiences (e.g., thoughts or language), while they are better able to recognise those which are cued by concrete sensory/perpetual experiences. We hypothesised that individuals without formal training in psychology would be more prone to these recognition failures than individuals with training in psychology. We tested the hypothesis by comparing the results of general first-year undergraduate students, graduate students in psychology and graduates students in other disciplines after each had participated in a two-week diary study of their naturally occurring involuntary memories. The results showed undergraduate participants and non-psychology graduate participants reporting fewer involuntary memories being triggered by abstract cues than the graduate psychology participants, while the groups did not differ in the report of memories triggered by sensory/perpetual cues. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Development of children's understanding of connections between thinking and feeling

Two studies assessed the development of children's understanding that thoughts and feelings are closely interlinked. These studies showed that, unlike 8-year-olds and adults, 5-year-olds seldom explained a sudden change in emotion that had no apparent external cause by appeal to the occurrence of a thought. They also tended not to recognize that a person who is feeling sad is probably also thinking sad thoughts, or that people may be able to make themselves feel happy just by thinking of something happy. These results are consistent with evidence that young children tend to be unaware of the stream of consciousness and have poor introspective skills. A possible developmental sequence leading to an understanding of these thought-feeling links is proposed.     

Trauma-related versus positive involuntary thoughts with and without meta-awareness

In earlier work, we asked subjects to report involuntary thoughts relating to a trauma film and also probed subjects periodically. Subjects often reported involuntary thoughts in response to probes, suggesting they lacked meta-awareness of those thoughts. But it is possible that some or all probe-detected thoughts were continuations of thoughts subjects had spontaneously reported, leading us to overestimate involuntary thoughts lacking meta-awareness. It is also unclear whether failures in meta-awareness occur for other emotional events. We exposed subjects to a negative or positive film. Subsequently, they reported involuntary film-related thoughts and responded to probes that distinguished new from continuing thoughts. Many (54%) but not all probe-caught thoughts were thought continuations. This result supports our earlier finding that people can lack meta-awareness for trauma-related thoughts, but suggests caution in how meta-awareness is assessed. We also found that self-caught negative and positive involuntary thoughts occurred at a similar frequency, with different characteristics.     

An experimental investigation of thought suppression

An experiment investigating the hypothesis that trying to suppress a thought will lead to an immediate and/or delayed increase in its occurrence is reported. Normal subjects listened to a taped story and then verbalized their stream of consciousness during two consecutive time periods. During the first period, one group (suppression) were asked not to think about the tape while two other groups (controls) were asked to think about anything or think about anything including the tape. During the second period, all three groups were instructed to think about anything. Results from the first period failed to support the immediate enhancement hypothesis as the suppression group reported less thoughts about the tape than the controls. However, results from the second period supported the delayed (rebound) hypothesis as subjects who had previously suppressed reported more thoughts about the tape than subjects who had not. The theoretical, methodological, and clinical implications of these results are discussed.     

心智游移：现象、机制及意义

心智游移是一种常见的非自主内源性意识体验, 是意识流的重要组成部分, 它的存在提示非感官意识在人类意识经验中的重要地位, 以及持续进行的无意识加工对个体生存可能具有的重要意义, 对心智游移的研究是心理学和认知神经科学领域内新兴的热点课题。本文重点回顾了关于心智游移的体验内容、与情绪的关系及其相关神经活动方面的研究成果, 在此基础上探讨了心智游移的发生机制及适应性功能。文章最后总结了目前心智游移研究中存在的定义不清、研究策略和方法过于局限以及研究内容上存在的问题, 并提出了该领域未来的研究方向以及应用价值。     

The frequency of involuntary autobiographical memories and future thoughts in relation to daydreaming,emotional distress,and age

We introduce a new scale, the Involuntary Autobiographical Memory Inventory (IAMI), for measuring the frequency of involuntary autobiographical memories and involuntary future thoughts. Using the scale in relation to other psychometric and demographic measures provided three important, novel findings. First, the frequency of involuntary and voluntary memories and future thoughts are similarly related to general measures of emotional distress. This challenges the idea that the involuntary mode is uniquely associated with emotional distress. Second, the frequency of involuntary autobiographical remembering does not decline with age, whereas measures of daydreaming, suppression of unwanted thoughts and dissociative experiences all do. Thus, involuntary autobiographical remembering relates differently to aging than daydreaming and other forms of spontaneous and uncontrollable thoughts. Third, unlike involuntary autobiographical remembering, the frequency of future thoughts does decrease with age. This finding underscores the need for examining past and future mental time travel in relation to aging and life span development.     

A mind to blame: new views on involuntary acts

This article examines the legal implications linked to recent scientific research on human consciousness. The article contends that groundbreaking revelations about consciousness expose the frailties of the criminal law's traditional dual dichotomies of conscious versus unconscious thought processes and voluntary versus involuntary acts. These binary doctrines have no valid scientific foundation and clash with other key criminal law defenses, primarily insanity. As a result, courts may adjudicate like individuals very differently based upon their (often unclear) understanding of these doctrines and the science that underlies them. This article proposes a compromise approach by recommending that the criminal law's concept of voluntariness consist of three parts: (i) voluntary acts, (ii) involuntary acts, and (iii) semi-voluntary acts. The semi-voluntary acts category, which is new, incorporates modern ideas of consciousness and also advances the law. Using some actual criminal cases, this article applies this new three-part grouping and demonstrates how it enhances a more just outcome for defendants, victims, and society.     

How to suppress obsessive thoughts

Thought suppression (i.e. consciously trying to avoid certain thoughts from entering consciousness) has been argued to be an inadequate strategy in case of unwanted intrusions. That is, thought suppression seems to result in more rather than less intrusions. Although this experimental finding has been explained in terms of failing attempts to distract oneself from the target thought, the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI; a scale that measures chronic thought suppression tendencies) does not address the means by which respondents try to suppress unwanted thoughts. To examine which strategies of mental control people use to suppress unwanted thoughts, obsessive-compulsive disorder patients (N=47) completed the WBSI, the Thought Control Questionnaire, and two measures of psychopathology. Results suggest that the crucial mechanism in thought suppression may not be distraction, but self-punishment.     

Do future thoughts reflect personal goals? Current concerns and mental time travel into the past and future

Our overriding hypothesis was that future thinking would be linked with goals to a greater extent than memories; conceptualizing goals as current concerns (i.e., uncompleted personal goals). We also hypothesized that current-concern-related events would differ from non-current-concern-related events on a set of phenomenological characteristics. We report novel data from a study examining involuntary and voluntary mental time travel using an adapted laboratory paradigm. Specifically, after autobiographical memories or future thoughts were elicited (between participants) in an involuntary and voluntary retrieval mode (within participants), participants self-generated five current concerns and decided whether each event was relevant or not to their current concerns. Consistent with our hypothesis, compared with memories, a larger percentage of involuntary and voluntary future thoughts reflected current concerns. Furthermore, events related to current concerns differed from non-concern-related events on a range of cognitive, representational, and affective phenomenological measures. These effects were consistent across temporal direction. In general, our results agree with the proposition that involuntary and voluntary future thinking is important for goal-directed cognition and behaviour.     

Can Studies of Autism Teach us About Consciousness of the Physical and the Mental?

Abstract

Most scientists and theorists concerned with the problem of consciousness focus on our consciousness of the physical world (our sensations, feelings, and awareness). In this paper I consider our consciousness of the mental world (our thoughts about thoughts, intentions, wishes, and emotions).The argument is made that these are two distinct forms of consciousness, the evidence for this deriving from studies of autism. Autism is a severe childhood psychiatric condition in which individuals may be conscious of the physical world but not of the mental world. Relevant experimental evidence is described, including some recent neuroimaging studies pointing towards the neural basis of our consciousness of the mental.     

The Continuity of Consciousness

Abstract: In this paper I discuss two puzzles that concern the sense in which consciousness can be described as ‘continuous’. The first puzzle arises out of recent work by Dainton and Tye, both of whom appear to oscillate between ascribing the property of ‘continuity’ to the stream of experience, and ascribing it to the objects of experience. The second puzzle concerns the notion that the stream of consciousness could be in some sense unreal or illusory—a puzzle stemming from the thought that some of the brain processes underlying consciousness do not exhibit continuity. I argue that these problems can be solved by distinguishing between three possible bearers of the property of ‘continuity’—(1) the State of Consciousness, (2) the Stream of Experience, and (3) what is represented by experience—and two different senses of ‘continuity’—‘strict’ and ‘extreme’ continuity. I conclude by providing a positive account of the continuity of consciousness, according to which the State of Consciousness exhibits ‘strict’ continuity, and the Stream of Experience exhibits ‘extreme’ continuity.     

Modulating the sense of agency with external cues

We investigate the processes underlying the feeling of control over one’s actions (“sense of agency”). Sense of agency may depend on internal motoric signals, and general inferences about external events. We used priming to modulate the sense of agency for voluntary and involuntary movements, by modifying the content of conscious thought prior to moving. Trials began with the presentation of one of two supraliminal primes, which corresponded to the effect of a voluntary action participants subsequently made. The perceived interval between movement and effect was used as an implicit measure of sense of agency. Primes modulated perceived intervals for both voluntary and involuntary movements, but the modulation was greatest for involuntary movements. A second experiment showed that this modulation depended on prime–movement (temporal) contiguity. We propose that sense of agency is based on a combination of internal motoric signals and external sensory evidence about the source of actions and effects.     

Priming involuntary autobiographical memories

Involuntary autobiographical memories occur frequently in daily life and are usually triggered by cues in one's environment. This study investigated the possibility that priming plays a role in the production of involuntary memories. In Study 1, participants recorded their involuntary memories in a diary for 14 days and then completed a questionnaire assessing their cognitive activity during the recording period. Participants indicating frequent thought about significant others on the questionnaire showed significantly more involuntary memories related to such individuals than a control group. In Studies 2 and 3, participants recorded their involuntary memories in diaries for 14 days and were primed with recall sessions in the laboratory during that period (recalling episodes from high school, Study 1, the past year, or ages 13-16, Studies 2 & 3). The results of both studies showed significant priming effects in the involuntary memories of participants for all of the periods primed. The possibility that priming plays a significant role in the daily production of involuntary memories is discussed.     

Unity and diversity of views on intelligence and consciousness: Where the East meets the West

Intelligence is a cognitive function. Cognitive processing is a common base for cognitive theories of intelligence in both the East (India) and in the West (Europe and America). I first review the Eastern view of intelligence and its relation to consciousness. I argue that the study of consciousness has been accepted in Western psychology as a legitimate topic since William James, then present further discussion on the topic from Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. In essence, it is about awareness and the means of achieving a pure state of awareness through self-directed attention to internal thoughts, rather than external objects. The validity of a first-person observation of consciousness then becomes an important issue as well as the question of a non-physical mind. The paper concludes that using introspective reflection as a tool to explore consciousness is supported by both views.     

Attention versus consciousness in the visual brain: differences in conception, phenomenology, behavior, neuroanatomy, and physiology.

A common confound between consciousness and attention makes it difficult to think clearly about recent advances in the understanding of the visual brain. Visual consciousness involves phenomenal experience of the visual world, but visual attention is more plausibly treated as a function that selects and maintains the selection of potential conscious contents, often unconsciously. In the same sense, eye movements select conscious visual events, which are not the same as conscious visual experience. According to common sense, visual experience is consciousness, and selective processes are labeled as attention. The distinction is reflected in very different behavioral measures and in very different brain anatomy and physiology. Visual consciousness tends to be associated with the "what" stream of visual feature neurons in the ventral temporal lobe. In contrast, attentional selection and maintenance are mediated by other brain regions, ranging from superior colliculi to thalamus, prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate. The author applied the common-sense distinction between attention and consciousness to the theoretical positions of M. I. Posner (1992, 1994) and D. LaBerge (1997, 1998) to show how it helps to clarify the evidence. He concluded that clarity of thought is served by calling a thing by its proper name.     

Thoughts,Processive Character and the Stream of Consciousness

Abstract

This paper explores the relation of thought and the stream of consciousness in the light of an ontological argument raised against cognitive phenomenology views. I argue that the ontological argument relies on a notion of ‘processive character’ that does not stand up to scrutiny and therefore it is insufficient for the argument to go through. I then analyse two more views on what ‘processive character’ means and argue that the process-part account best captures the intuition behind the argument. Following this view, I reconstruct the ontological argument and argue that it succeeds in establishing that some mental episodes like judging, understanding and occurrent states of thought do not enter into the stream but fails to exclude episodes like entertaining. Contrary to what it might seem, this conclusion fits well with cognitive phenomenology views, given that, as I show, there is a way for non-processive mental episodes to be fundamentally related to processive ones, such that they cannot be excluded from the phenomenal domain. This paper sheds light on the nature of different kinds of thoughts and questions a fundamental asymmetry between the perceptual and the cognitive domain when it comes to their ontology and temporal character.