Genuinely broad in scope, each handbook in this series provides a complete state-of-the-field overview of a major sub-discipline within language study, law, education and psychological science research.
Genuinely broad in scope, each handbook in this series provides a complete state-of-the-field overview of a major sub-discipline within language study, law, education and psychological science research.
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Empirical evidence shows that much of the functioning of our motor system occurs without awareness. It seems that consciousness can manifest itself at three stages: intention to perform an action, performance of intended action, and perception of the effects of performed action. This chapter reviews the evidence that suggests that many aspects of action, from initiation to appreciation of the percepts that guide them, occur without awareness. It argues that one aspect of an action that is normally available to awareness is the sensory consequence(s) of that action, or, more precisely, the prediction of the sensory consequences of that action. Action execution depends on one of the two visual systems. There is a sensorimotor or "how" system, which controls visually guided behavior without access to consciousness. The other is a cognitive or "what" system, which gives rise to perception and is used consciously in pattern recognition and normal visual experience.
This chapter examines Indian views of the mind and consciousness, with particular focus on the Indian Buddhist tradition. One of the most salient features of this tradition is that its accounts of the mind and consciousness do not posit the existence of a self. One of the most important views of the mind in the Hindu tradition is found in the Samkhya School. The chapter focuses on two Indian thinkers from the 4th or 5th century CE, Asanga and Vasubandhu. It considers Dharmakirti's analysis of the nature of cognitive events. It also examines Dharmakirti's theory of perception, as well as some of his views on the nature of conceptuality and its relation to language. Finally, the chapter revisits the issue of intentionality, showing the complexity of this notion and attempting to disentangle its several possible meanings within the context of a Buddhist account of the mental.
This introduction provides an overview of the concepts discussed in the various chapters of this volume on consciousness. This volume attempts to survey the major developments in a wide range of intellectual domains to give the reader an appreciation of the state of the field and where it is heading. The development of new techniques has made it possible to treat consciousness in a more rigorous and scientifically respectable fashion. These techniques include electrophysiological methods, such as magneto-encephalography (MEG), and various types of functional neuroimaging, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). There is currently considerable interest in exploring the neural correlates of consciousness. The volume covers philosophical approaches to consciousness from a variety of cultural perspectives, including continental phenomenology and Asian philosophy. It is organized mainly around a broad (sometimes untenable) distinction between cognitive scientific approaches and neuroscientific approaches.
Hypnosis is a process in which one person responds to the suggestions given by another for imaginative experiences involving alterations in perception, memory, and the voluntary control of action. This chapter reviews a number of phenomena, including posthypnotic amnesia; hypnotic analgesia; hypnotic deafness, blindness, and agnosia; and emotional numbing, with an eye toward uncovering dissociations between explicit and implicit memory, perception, and emotion. In addition to total or tubular blindness, hypnotic subjects can also be given suggestions for color blindness. Hypnotic suggestions of a different sort may indeed abolish Stroop interference. There is much about hypnosis that appears to be automatic. The controversy over the very nature of hypnosis has often led the investigators to seek evidence of neural and other biological changes to demonstrate that hypnosis is real or, alternatively, to debunk the phenomenon as illusion and fakery.
This chapter highlights that the study of metacognition sheds light on some fundamental issues about consciousness and its role in behavior. It analyzes the long-standing issue of the cause-and-effect relation between consciousness and behavior. The chapter emphasizes the work on metacognition within the area of adult memory research. It examines questions on metacognitive judgments, emphasizing its implications for issues concerning consciousness; in particular, the genesis of subjective experience, the function of self-reflective consciousness, and the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior. These questions explore the bases of metacognitive judgments, validity of subjective intuitions, the processes underlying the accuracy and inaccuracy of metacognitive judgments and strategic regulation of learning and remembering. In conclusion, the chapter comments on how the research on metacognition relates to some of the fundamental issues regarding consciousness and its role in behavior.
Many theorists treat consciousness as a single, all-or-nothing phenomenon, others distinguish between first order consciousness and a meta-level of consciousness. This chapter proposes that discussions of the development of consciousness have been hampered by reliance on relatively undifferentiated notions of consciousness. It describes the Levels of Consciousness (LOC) model, which addresses explicitly the potential implications of neurocognitive development for children's subjective experience. First, the chapter presents an overview of the model and then provides an account of the way in which consciousness develops during the first 5 years of life (and potentially beyond). Finally, it considers the implications of the LOC model for: the structure of consciousness, cognitive control via the use of rules at different levels of complexity, the functions of prefrontal cortex, and the development of consciousness in childhood.
This introduction provides an overview of the concepts discussed in the various chapters of this volume on consciousness. This volume attempts to survey the major developments in a wide range of intellectual domains to give the reader an appreciation of the state of the field and where it is heading. The development of new techniques has made it possible to treat consciousness in a more rigorous and scientifically respectable fashion. These techniques include electrophysiological methods, such as magneto-encephalography (MEG), and various types of functional neuroimaging, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). There is currently considerable interest in exploring the neural correlates of consciousness. The volume covers philosophical approaches to consciousness from a variety of cultural perspectives, including continental phenomenology and Asian philosophy. It is organized mainly around a broad (sometimes untenable) distinction between cognitive scientific approaches and neuroscientific approaches.
Consciousness is only marginally relevant to artificial intelligence (AI), because to most researchers in the field other problems seem more pressing. The purpose of consciousness, from an evolutionary perspective, is often held to have something to do with the allocation and organization of scarce cognitive resources. This chapter describes Daniel Dennett's idea of the intentional stance, in which an observer explains a system's behavior by invoking such intentional categories as beliefs and goals. The computationalist theory of phenomenal consciousness ends up looking like a spoil-sport's explanation of a magic trick. The chapter focuses on critiques that are specifically directed at computational models of consciousness, as opposed to general critiques of materialist explanation. The contribution of artificial intelligence to consciousness studies has been slender so far, because almost everyone in the field would rather work on better defined, less controversial problems.
This chapter surveys current approaches to consciousness in Anglo-American analytic philosophy. The five approaches discussed here include: mysterianism, dualism, representationalism, higher-order monitoring theory (HOMT), and self-representationalism. The chapter introduces a conceptual distinction between two kinds of mysterianism, an ontological one and an epistemological one. At the center of McGinn's theory is the concept of cognitive closure. Traditionally, approaches to the ontology of mind and consciousness have been divided into two main groups: monism and dualism. Most of the arguments that have been marshaled against representationalism are arguments by counter-example. HOMT tends to anchor consciousness in the operation of a monitoring device. One problem that does persist for the self-representational theory is the problem of animal consciousness. The ability to have self-representing states presumably requires all the conceptual sophistication that the ability to have higher-order monitoring states does, and perhaps even greater sophistication.
This chapter considers three distinct but related classes of evidence: behavioral studies, neuroimaging, and brain-damaged patient case studies. It discusses recent advances in the study of implicit perception, considering the ways in which they do and do not improve on earlier approaches. The chapter highlights claims for implicit perceptual or semantic processing of discrete stimuli, largely overlooking implicit skill learning, artificial grammar learning, or other forms of procedural knowledge that might well be acquired without awareness. It also considers recent arguments about how best to study implicit perception. Claims for and against implicit perception received extensive empirical attention starting in the late 1950s, with sentiment in the field vacillating between acceptance and skepticism. Finally, the chapter discusses how qualitative differences in the nature of perceptual processing may be of theoretical significance even without a clear demonstration that processing occurs entirely outside of awareness.
This chapter provides an overview of existing computational (mechanistic) models of cognition in relation to the study of consciousness, on the basis of psychological and philosophical theories and data. It begins by examining some foundational issues concerning computational approaches toward consciousness. Then, various existing models and their explanations of the conscious/unconscious distinction are presented. Work in the area of computational modeling of consciousness generally assumes the sufficiency and the necessity of mechanistic explanations. The chapter looks into some details of two representative computational models, exemplifying either two systems or one-system views. Various related issues, such as the utility of computational models, explanations of psychological data, and potential applications of machine consciousness, have been touched on in the process. Based on existing psychological and philosophical evidence, existing models were compared and contrasted to some extent.
This chapter examines Indian views of the mind and consciousness, with particular focus on the Indian Buddhist tradition. One of the most salient features of this tradition is that its accounts of the mind and consciousness do not posit the existence of a self. One of the most important views of the mind in the Hindu tradition is found in the Samkhya School. The chapter focuses on two Indian thinkers from the 4th or 5th century CE, Asanga and Vasubandhu. It considers Dharmakirti's analysis of the nature of cognitive events. It also examines Dharmakirti's theory of perception, as well as some of his views on the nature of conceptuality and its relation to language. Finally, the chapter revisits the issue of intentionality, showing the complexity of this notion and attempting to disentangle its several possible meanings within the context of a Buddhist account of the mental.