CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE MACHINE

Abstract. We consider only the relationship of consciousness to physical reality, whether physical reality is interpreted as the brain, artificial intelligence, or the universe as a whole. The difficulties with starting the analysis with physical reality on the one hand and with consciousness on the other are delineated. We consider how one may derive from the other. Concepts of universal or pure consciousness versus local or ego consciousness are explored with the possibility that consciousness may be physically creative. We examine whether artificial intelligence can possess consciousness as an extension of the interrelationship between consciousness and the brain or material reality.     

Counselor Values: A National Survey

A national sample (n = 479) of counselors representative of the 1993 American Counseling Association membership was surveyed regarding their value orientations in four domains: universal values, mental health values, individualistic-collectivistic values, and religious-spiritual values. Results yielded a multifaceted, generally concordant (although by no means unanimous) value profile for professional counselors across these value domains, presenting an overall content pattern that might be globally summarized as a strong core valuing of holistic-humanistic empowerment related to personal development and interpersonal and social concern. Implications for counseling practice, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Habituating effects of nonhydrational oral stimulation on ingestive behaviors

The role of oral stimulation in the control of ingestive behavior was investigated using an airlicking procedure. It was hypothesized that the oral experience of airlicking would inhibit subsequent ingestive activity (water intake), possibly via an habituation process as suggested by recent research (Swithers, 1996). Rats were implanted with gastric cannulas and trained to lick at a stream of air. Experimental conditions con-sisted of combinations of airlicking and intragastric hydration followed by oral intake of water. In support of the main hypothesis, airlicking did reduce subsequent ingestive activity. While the role of habituation was not tested directly, the results lend support to the proposal that oral stimulation does control ingestion, and this control could act through an habituation process.     

Sex-role expectations changes by fathers for their sons

One hundred nineteen white father-son pairs served as subjects in an effort to examine the impact on sex-role redefinitions of boys' behavior as a result of shifting cultural attitudes toward androgyny. Two major questions were addressed: a) Do fathers' general sex-role beliefs influence their attitudes about sex roles they would like their sons to hold? and b) Do fathers' desires for the sex role attitudes they would like their sons to hold influence the attitudes their sons actually hold? A strong, positive relationship between fathers' and sons' sex-role beliefs and expectations emerged, especially among fathers of adolescent boys. The results are discussed in terms of the fathers' role in shaping their sons' beliefs.     

Effects of noise and attack on aggression and physiological arousal

Sixty male subjects were first given either 10 shocks or 2 shocks by an experimental confederate. Two-thirds were then stimulated with loud and aversive noise while the other one-third were not so stimulated. In one of the noise-stimulated conditions, the subject was free to terminate the noise. In the other condition, the subject had no control over the noise. Subjects in all conditions were then given an opportunity to aggress against the confederate. Measures of skin conductance, pulse rate, and blood pressure were made after the subject had been shocked and again after the noise had been given. Subjects who had been given 10 shocks followed by uncontrollable noise gave shocks of longer duration than subjects in any other condition. Subjects given uncontrollable noise also showed evidence of being more physiologically aroused than those given controllable noise or no noise.This research was supported by Grant GS 40171 from the National Science Foundation to the first author.     

An intrasubject approach to causal attribution

The present investigation draws on the judgment research tradition in order to examine the causal attributions made by individual subjects in an often used attribution task. Formal empirical tests of Kelley's (1967) attribution theory have demonstrated that attributions are influenced by the interaction of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information. None of these studies, however, have separately examined attributions made by individual judges. Implicit assumptions about individual differences, for example, have been made by the template-matching model of causal attribution (Orvis, Cunningham, & Kelley, 1975) but have not been scrutinized at the intrasubject level. Log linear modeling of attributions in the present research showed that while subjects were influenced by the causal information in the task, the relation between this information and attributions was more importantly characterized by individual differences than by uniform patterning. The nature of these individual differences and the significance of an idiographic approach to causal analysis are discussed.     

Processing the information contained in another's behavior

This study investigates attributions based on behavior congruent with situational demands (in-role) and those based on behavior incongruent with situational demands (out-of-role). By analyzing these processes in terms of a Bayesian inference model, it was possible to determine (a) the diagnostic values observers intially assign to behaviors, (b) the actual informational impact of these behaviors, and (c) the degree of optimality in processing information contained therein. The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) The diagnostic value and actual informational impact of out-of-role behaviors were much higher than those of inrole behaviors. (2) Information about out-of-role behaviors was less optimally processed than information about in-role behaviors. (3) Observers assigned smaller diagnostic values to behaviors which were described in great detail than to behaviors which were described in summary statements. (4) Observers' attitudes influenced their initial beliefs about the actors but not the processing of new information about the actor. (5) The Bayesian inference model predicted observers' inferences reasonably well.     

What a person thinks upon learning he has chosen differently from others: Nice evidence for the persuasive-arguments explanation of choice shifts

Small shifts in choice occur even without discussion, when individuals merely know each other's preference. This appears to support an interpersonal comparison explanation of group induced shifts in choice and to refute explanations based on persuasive argumentation. The present study demonstrates the contrary, that such effects are consistent with the persuasive-arguments formulation and are obtained under particular conditions specified only by the latter theory, to wit: Knowledge of other's choices is assumed to lead a person to think of reasons (arguments) others might have had for their choices-reasons which ordinarily would not come to mind without this knowledge. Such reasoning functions in the same way as persuasive argumentation during group discussion; it causes the person to persuade himself that an alternative course of action now has greater merit than the one he initially preferred. To test this analysis, an experiment was performed in which subjects responded to choice-dilemma items under three different conditions: Following their own choice (I) they learned what several others had chosen and then wrote arguments in support of alternatives given in that same item; (II) they learned what several others had chosen and then wrote arguments in support of alternatives given in a different item; and (III) they received no information about others' choices but merely wrote arguments on that item. As predicted, shifts in choice occurred only if the person knew what others chose and had an opportunity to think about the latter (condition I); they did not occur if an opportunity to think of others' choices was denied (condition II), nor if knowledge of others' choices was withheld (condition III). Content analysis of the arguments subjects produced in conditions I and II completely supported the hypothesis, as did analyses of responses to postexperimental questionnaire which directly asked the subjects about their feelings and thoughts upon learning what others had chosen.