Chasing the Rainbow: The Non-conscious Nature of Being

Stimulus valence moderates self-learning

Self-relevance has been demonstrated to impair instrumental learning. Compared to unfamiliar symbols associated with a friend, analogous stimuli linked with the self are learned more slowly. What is not yet understood, however, is whether this effect extends beyond arbitrary stimuli to material with intrinsically meaningful properties. Take, for example, stimulus valence an established moderator of self-bias. Does the desirability of to-be-learned material influence self-learning? Here, in conjunction with computational modelling (i.e. Reinforcement Learning Drift Diffusion Model analysis), a probabilistic selection task was used to establish if and how stimulus valence (i.e. desirable/undesirable posters) impacts the acquisition of knowledge relating to object-ownership (i.e. owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend). Several interesting results were observed. First, undesirable posters were learned more rapidly for self compared to friend, an effect that was reversed for desirable posters. Second, learning rates were accompanied by associated differences in reward sensitivity toward desirable and undesirable choice selections as a function of ownership. Third, decisional caution was greater for self-relevant (vs. friend relevant) responses. Collectively, these findings inform understanding of self-function and how valence and stimulus relevance mutually influence probabilistic learning.

Manifestations, social impact, and decay of conceptual beliefs: A cultural perspective

INTRODUCTION

Believing comprises multifaceted processes that integrate information from the outside world through meaning-making processes with personal relevance.

METHODS

Qualitative Review of the current literature in social cognitive neuroscience.

RESULTS

Although believing develops rapidly outside an individual's conscious awareness, it results in the formation of beliefs that are stored in memory and play an important role in determining an individual's behavior. Primal beliefs reflect an individual's experience of objects and events, whereas conceptual beliefs are based on narratives that are held in social groups. Conceptual beliefs can be about autobiographical, political, religious, and other aspects of life and may be encouraged by participation in group rituals. We hypothesize that assertions of future gains and rewards that transcend but are inherent in these codices provide incentives to follow the norms and rules of social groups.

CONCLUSION

The power of conceptual beliefs to provide cultural orientation is likely to fade when circumstances and evidence make it clear that what was asserted no longer applies.

Learning about me and you: Only deterministic stimulus associations elicit self-prioritization

Self-relevant material has been shown to be prioritized over stimuli relating to others (e.g., friend, stranger), generating benefits in attention, memory, and decision-making. What is not yet understood, however, is whether the conditions under which self-related knowledge is acquired impacts the emergence of self-bias. To address this matter, here we used an associative-learning paradigm in combination with a stimulus-classification task to explore the effects of different learning experiences (i.e., deterministic vs. probabilistic) on self-prioritization. The results revealed an effect of prior learning on task performance, with self-prioritization only emerging when participants acquired target-related associations (i.e., self vs. friend) under conditions of certainty (vs. uncertainty). A further computational (i.e., drift diffusion model) analysis indicated that differences in the efficiency of stimulus processing (i.e., rate of information uptake) underpinned this self-prioritization effect. The implications of these findings for accounts of self-function are considered.

The "Creativity Crisis" as a Mind in Crisis: A Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Position

Creativity is considered a global ability and crucial for ordinary-daily and special (e.g., science, aesthetic) activities. In this paper, from the position of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), we expand the debate about the creativity crisis and hypothesize that the noted crisis is only the tip of the iceberg represented by the crisis of the postmodern' incoherent mind, reflecting the crisis of self-realization as a leading activity in the individualistic epoch. By investigating creativity as an original functionality of the mind, two key titles are stressed. One is the halting of the activity system; two, it is the inconsistency between the objective meanings sphere and the subjective sense-making sphere. Both titles represent the epistemological rupture embedded in the mainstream culture and praxis rooted in the internal contradictions of individualism and post-modernism as worldview and practices, leading the mind to close its eyes on the contradictions which are the crucial source of grasping the internal content (abstraction and generalization) of the given experience, hence, a crucial source of creativity. Thus, it is considered that not only creativity is in crisis, but also the coherence of the mind as well, as an extreme result of the shattered postmodern existence.

Self-Prioritization Reconsidered: Scrutinizing Three Claims

Such is the power of self-relevance, it has been argued that even arbitrary stimuli (e.g., shapes, lines, colors) with no prior personal connection are privileged during information processing following their association with the self (i.e., self-prioritization). This prioritization effect, moreover, is deemed to be stimulus driven (i.e., automatic), grounded in perception, and supported by specialized processing operations. Here, however, we scrutinize these claims and challenge this viewpoint. Although self-relevance unquestionably influences information processing, we contend that, at least at present, there is limited evidence to suggest that the prioritization of arbitrary self-related stimuli is compulsory, penetrates perception, and is underpinned by activity in a dedicated neural network. Rather, self-prioritization appears to be a task-dependent product of ordinary cognitive processes.

Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: Are They Nonconscious, Unconscious, or Subconscious? Expanding the Discussion

Unprecedented advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) have given rise to ethical questions about how to recognize and respect autonomy and a sense of agency of the personhood when those capacities are themselves disordered, as they typically are in patients with DoC. At the intersection of these questions rests the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness. Indeed, evaluations of consciousness levels and capacity for recovery have a significant impact on decisions regarding whether to discontinue or prolong life-sustaining therapy for DoC patients. However, in the unconsciousness domain, there is the confusing array of terms that are regularly used interchangeably, making it quite challenging to comprehend what unconsciousness is and how it might be empirically grounded. In this opinion paper, we will provide a brief overview of the state of the field of unconsciousness and show how a rapidly evolving electroencephalogram (EEG) neuroimaging technique may offer empirical, theoretical, and practical tools to approach unconsciousness and to improve our ability to distinguish consciousness from unconsciousness and also nonconsciousness with greater precision, particularly in cases that are borderline (as is typical in patients with DoC). Furthermore, we will provide a clear description of three distant notions of (un)consciousness (unconsciousness, nonconsciousness, and subconsciousness) and discuss how they relate to the experiential selfhood which is essential for comprehending the moral significance of what makes life worth living.

Thinking, holograms, and the quantum brain

This article continues the development of the idea that all human behavior and thinking are innate. A model of thinking and functioning of the brain has been constructed, which is capable of explaining both the accuracy of molecular processes and the innateness of behaviors. The focus of the model is the phase of the wave function of the particle, which is an additional (free) parameter. It should also be emphasized that the phase of the wave function of a particle is inextricably linked with the quantum action S in the Feynman's formulation of quantum mechanics (path integrals). A hypothesis is proposed: the set of particles that make up neurons and the brain is controlled by changing the phases from the outside (by a higher order system). Such a control system must be outside our world because our measurement methods do not allow us to determine the phase of an elementary particle. In a sense, it can be viewed as an extension of Bohm's ideas about the holographic brain and the holographic universe. Experiments are proposed that could confirm or disprove this model.

Bridging the gap between believing and memory functions

Believing has recently been recognized as a fundamental brain function linking a person’s experience with his or her attitude, actions and predictions. In general, believing results from the integration of ambient information with emotions and can be reinforced or modulated in a probabilistic fashion by new experiences. Although these processes occur in the subliminal realm, humans can become aware of what they believe and express it verbally. We explain how believing is interwoven with memory functions in a multifaceted fashion. Linking the typically rapid and adequate reactions of a subject to what he/she believes is enabled by working memory. Perceptions are stored in episodic memory as beneficial or aversive events, while the corresponding verbal descriptions of what somebody believes are stored in semantic memory. After recall from memory of what someone believes, personally relevant information can be communicated to other people. Thus, memory is essential for maintaining what people believe.

Believing and social interactions: effects on bodily expressions and personal narratives

The processes of believing integrate external perceptual information from the environment with internal emotional states and prior experience to generate probabilistic neural representations of events, i.e., beliefs. As these neural representations manifest mostly below the level of a person's conscious awareness, they may inadvertently affect the spontaneous person's bodily expressions and prospective behavior. By yet to be understood mechanisms people can become aware of these representations and reflect upon them. Typically, people can communicate the content of their beliefs as personal statements and can summarize the narratives of others to themselves or to other people. Here, we describe that social interactions may benefit from the consistency between a person's bodily expressions and verbal statements because the person appears authentic and ultimately trustworthy. The transmission of narratives can thus lay the groundwork for social cooperation within and between groups and, ultimately, between communities and nations. Conversely, a discrepancy between bodily expressions and narratives may cause distrust in the addressee(s) and eventually may destroy social bonds.

Editing reality in the brain

Recent information technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) allow the creation of simulated sensory worlds with which we can interact. Using programming language, digital details can be overlaid onto displays of our environment, confounding what is real and what has been artificially engineered. Natural language, particularly the use of direct verbal suggestion (DVS) in everyday and hypnotic contexts, can also manipulate the meaning and significance of objects and events in ourselves and others. In this review, we focus on how socially rewarding language can construct and influence reality. Language is symbolic, automatic and flexible and can be used to augment bodily sensations e.g. feelings of heaviness in a limb or suggest a colour that is not there. We introduce the term ‘suggested reality’ (SR) to refer to the important role that language, specifically DVS, plays in constructing, maintaining and manipulating our shared reality. We also propose the term edited reality to encompass the wider influence of information technology and linguistic techniques that results in altered subjective experience and review its use in clinical settings, while acknowledging its limitations. We develop a cognitive model indicating how the brain’s central executive structures use our personal and linguistic-based narrative in subjective awareness, arguing for a central role for language in DVS. A better understanding of the characteristics of VR, AR and SR and their applications in everyday life, research and clinical settings can help us to better understand our own reality and how it can be edited.

A voice without a mouth no more: The neurobiology of language and consciousness

Most research on the neurobiology of language ignores consciousness and vice versa. Here, language, with an emphasis on inner speech, is hypothesised to generate and sustain self-awareness, i.e., higher-order consciousness. Converging evidence supporting this hypothesis is reviewed. To account for these findings, a 'HOLISTIC' model of neurobiology of language, inner speech, and consciousness is proposed. It involves a 'core' set of inner speech production regions that initiate the experience of feeling and hearing words. These take on affective qualities, deriving from activation of associated sensory, motor, and emotional representations, involving a largely unconscious dynamic 'periphery', distributed throughout the whole brain. Responding to those words forms the basis for sustained network activity, involving 'default mode' activation and prefrontal and thalamic/brainstem selection of contextually relevant responses. Evidence for the model is reviewed, supporting neuroimaging meta-analyses conducted, and comparisons with other theories of consciousness made. The HOLISTIC model constitutes a more parsimonious and complete account of the 'neural correlates of consciousness' that has implications for a mechanistic account of mental health and wellbeing.

Sticky me: Self-relevance slows reinforcement learning

A prominent facet of social-cognitive functioning is that self-relevant information is prioritized in perception, attention, and memory. What is not yet understood, however, is whether similar effects arise during learning. In particular, compared to other people (e.g., best friend) is information about the self acquired more rapidly? To explore this matter, here we used a probabilistic selection task in combination with computational modeling (i.e., Reinforcement Learning Drift Diffusion Model analysis) to establish how self-relevance influences learning under conditions of uncertainty (i.e., choices are based on the perceived likelihood of positive and negative outcomes). Across two experiments, a consistent pattern of effects was observed. First, learning rates for both positive and negative prediction errors were slower for self-relevant compared to friend-relevant associations. Second, self-relevant (vs. friend-relevant) learning was characterized by the exploitation (vs. exploration) of choice selections. That is, in a complex (i.e., probabilistic) decision-making environment, previously rewarded self-related outcomes were selected more often than novel - but potentially riskier - alternatives. The implications of these findings for accounts of self-function are considered.

Artificial Intelligence Inheriting the Historical Crisis in Psychology: An Epistemological and Methodological Investigation of Challenges and Alternatives

By following the arguments developed by Vygotsky and employing the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) in addition to dialectical logic, this paper attempts to investigate the interaction between psychology and artificial intelligence (AI) to confront the epistemological and methodological challenges encountered in AI research. The paper proposes that AI is facing an epistemological and methodological crisis inherited from psychology based on dualist ontology. The roots of this crisis lie in the duality between rationalism and objectivism or in the mind-body rupture that has governed the production of scientific thought and the proliferation of approaches. In addition, by highlighting the sociohistorical conditions of AI, this paper investigates the historical characteristics of the shift of the crisis from psychology to AI. Additionally, we examine the epistemological and methodological roots of the main challenges encountered in AI research by noting that empiricism is the dominant tendency in the field. Empiricism gives rise to methodological and practical challenges, including challenges related to the emergence of meaning, abstraction, generalization, the emergence of symbols, concept formation, functional reflection of reality, and the emergence of higher psychological functions. Furthermore, through discussing attempts to formalize dialectical logic, the paper, based on contradiction formation, proposes a qualitative epistemological, methodological, and formal alternative by using a preliminary algorithmic model that grasps the formation of meaning as an essential ability for the qualitative reflection of reality and the emergence of other mental functions.

The Neural Correlates of Access Consciousness and Phenomenal Consciousness Seem to Coincide and Would Correspond to a Memory Center, an Activation Center and Eight Parallel Convergence Centers

An increasing number of authors suggest that the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) have no selective, executive, or metacognitive function. It is believed that attention unconsciously selects the contents that will become conscious. Consciousness would have only the fundamental function of transforming the selected contents into a format easily used by high-level processors, such as working memory, language, or autobiographical memory. According to Dehaene, the neural correlates (NC) of access consciousness (AC; cognitive consciousness) constitute a widespread network in the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices. While Tononi localized the correlates of phenomenal consciousness (PC; subjective consciousness) to a posterior “hot zone” in the temporo-parietal cortex. A careful examination of the works of these two groups leads to the conclusion that the correlates of access and PC coincide. The two consciousnesses are therefore two faces of the same single consciousness with both its cognitive and subjective contents. A review of the literature of the pathology called “neglect” confirms that the common correlates include 10: a memory center, an activation center, and eight parallel centers. From study of the “imagery” it can be deduced that these eight parallel centers would operate as points of convergence in the third person linking the respective eight sensory-motor-emotional areas activated by external perceptions and the corresponding memories of these perceptions deposited in the memory center. The first four centers of convergence appear in the most evolved fish and gradually reach eight in humans.

Suggested visual blockade during hypnosis: Top-down modulation of stimulus processing in a visual oddball task

Several theories of hypnosis assume that responses to hypnotic suggestions are implemented through top-down modulations via a frontoparietal network that is involved in monitoring and cognitive control. The current study addressed this issue re-analyzing previously published event-related-potentials (ERP) (N1, P2, and P3b amplitudes) and combined it with source reconstruction and connectivity analysis methods. ERP data were obtained from participants engaged in a visual oddball paradigm composed of target, standard, and distractor stimuli during a hypnosis (HYP) and a control (CON) condition. In both conditions, participants were asked to count the rare targets presented on a video screen. During HYP participants received suggestions that a wooden board in front of their eyes would obstruct their view of the screen. The results showed that participants’ counting accuracy was significantly impaired during HYP compared to CON. ERP components in the N1 and P2 window revealed no amplitude differences between CON and HYP at sensor-level. In contrast, P3b amplitudes in response to target stimuli were significantly reduced during HYP compared to CON. Source analysis of the P3b amplitudes in response to targets indicated that HYP was associated with reduced source activities in occipital and parietal brain areas related to stimulus categorization and attention. We further explored how these brain sources interacted by computing time-frequency effective connectivity between electrodes that best represented frontal, parietal, and occipital sources. This analysis revealed reduced directed information flow from parietal attentional to frontal executive sources during processing of target stimuli. These results provide preliminary evidence that hypnotic suggestions of a visual blockade are associated with a disruption of the coupling within the frontoparietal network implicated in top-down control.

Giving Up on Consciousness as the Ghost in the Machine

Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents. This compelling, intuitive consciousness-centric account has, and continues to shape folk and scientific accounts of psychology and human behavior. Over the last 30 years, research from the cognitive neurosciences has challenged this intuitive social construct account when providing a neurocognitive architecture for a human psychology. Growing evidence suggests that the executive functions typically attributed to the experience of consciousness are carried out competently, backstage and outside subjective awareness by a myriad of fast, efficient non-conscious brain systems. While it remains unclear how and where the experience of consciousness is generated in the brain, we suggested that the traditional intuitive explanation that consciousness is causally efficacious is wrong-headed when providing a cognitive neuroscientific account of human psychology. Notwithstanding the compelling 1st-person experience (inside view) that convinces us that subjective awareness is the mental curator of our actions and thoughts, we argue that the best framework for building a scientific account is to be consistent with the biophysical causal dependency of prior neural processes. From a 3rd person perspective, (outside view), we propose that subjective awareness lacking causal influence, is (no more) than our experience of being aware, our awareness of our psychological content, knowing that we are aware, and the belief that that such experiences are evidence of an agentive capacity shared by others. While the human mind can be described as comprising both conscious and nonconscious aspects, both ultimately depend on neural process in the brain. In arguing for the counter-intuitive epiphenomenal perspective, we suggest that a scientific approach considers all mental aspects of mind including consciousness in terms of their underlying, preceding (causal) biological changes, in the realization that most brain processes are not accompanied by any discernible change in subjective awareness.

Beliefs: A challenge in neuropsychological disorders

INTRODUCTION

Beliefs have recently been defined as the neural product of perception of objects and events in the external world and of an affirmative internal affective state reflecting personal meaning. It is, however, undetermined in which way diseases of the brain affect these integrative processes.

METHODS

Here, the formation and updating of abnormal beliefs in cerebral disorders are described.

RESULTS

It will be shown that well-defined neuropsychological syndromes resulting from brain lesions also interfere with the neural processes that enable the formation, up-dating and communication of beliefs. Similarly, in neuropsychiatric disorders abnormal and delusional beliefs appear to be caused by altered perception and/or misattribution of aversive meaning.

CONCLUSION

Given the importance of beliefs for ordinary social behaviour, abnormal beliefs are a challenge in neuropsychological disorders.

Agency and Accountability: Ethical Considerations for Brain-Computer Interfaces

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are systems in which a user's real-time brain activity is used to control an external device, such as a prosthetic limb. BCIs have great potential for restoring lost motor functions in a wide range of patients. However, this futuristic technology raises several ethical questions, especially concerning the degree of agency a BCI affords its user and the extent to which a BCI user ought to be accountable for actions undertaken via the device. This paper examines these and other ethical concerns found at each of the three major parts of the BCI system: the sensor that records neural activity, the decoder that converts raw data into usable signals, and the translator that uses these signals to control the movement of an external device.

UNITED KINGDOM NORMS FOR THE HARVARD GROUP SCALE OF HYPNOTIC SUSCEPTIBILITY, FORM A

The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A), is widely used as a measure of suggestibility to screen participants for research purposes. To date, there have been a number of normative studies of the HGSHS:A, the majority of which originate from Western countries. The outcomes of these Western studies are summarized, and variations in methodologies are described and discussed. Also reported are the psychometric properties of the HGSHS:A in a large contemporary United Kingdom (UK) sample. Overall, these UK results are consistent with the earlier Western norms studies in terms of response distribution and item difficulty, with only minor differences. The continued use of HGSHS:A as a screening procedure is supported, particularly if corrected for response subjectivity/involuntariness and with revised amnesia scoring. The HGSHS:A is also important as a potential measure of the broader trait of direct verbal suggestibility.

I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior

Organisms are adapted to each other and the environment because there is an inbuilt striving toward security, stability, and equilibrium. A General Theory of Behavior connects imagery, affect, and action with the central executive system we call consciousness, a direct emergent property of cerebral activity. The General Theory is founded on the assumption that the primary motivation of all of consciousness and intentional behavior is psychological homeostasis. Psychological homeostasis is as important to the organization of mind and behavior as physiological homeostasis is to the organization of bodily systems. Consciousness processes quasi-perceptual images independently of the input to the retina and sensorium. Consciousness is the "I am" control center for integration and regulation of (my) thoughts, (my) feelings, and (my) actions with (my) conscious mental imagery as foundation stones. The fundamental, universal conscious desire for psychological homeostasis benefits from the degree of vividness of inner imagery. Imagery vividness, a combination of clarity and liveliness, is beneficial to imagining, remembering, thinking, predicting, planning, and acting. Assessment of vividness using introspective report is validated by objective means such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A significant body of work shows that vividness of visual imagery is determined by the similarity of neural responses in imagery to those occurring in perception of actual objects and performance of activities. I am conscious; therefore, I am.

Creativity, information, and consciousness: The information dynamics of thinking

This paper presents a theory of the basic operation of mind, Information Dynamics of Thinking, which is intended for computational implementation and thence empirical testing. It is based on the information theory of Shannon, and treats the mind/brain as an information processing organ that aims to be information-efficient, in that it predicts its world, so as to use information efficiently, and regularly re-represents it, so as to store information efficiently. The theory is presented in context of a background review of various research areas that impinge upon its development. Consequences of the theory and testable hypotheses arising from it are discussed.