Using a classical conditioning technique, this study investigated whether nonconscious associative learning could be indexed by event-related brain activity . There were three phases. In a preconditioning baseline phase, pleasant and unpleasant facial schematics were presented in awareness . A conditioning phase followed, in which stimuli were presented outside awareness , with an unpleasant face linked to an aversive shock and a pleasant face not linked to a shock. The third, postconditioning phase, involved stimulus presentations in awareness . Evidence for (...) acquisition of a conditional response was sought by comparing suprathreshold pre- and postconditioning phases, as well as in the subthreshold conditioning phase itself. For the pre-postconditioning phase analyses, significant ERP component differences differentiating CS+ and CS− were observed for N1, P2, and especially P3. For the conditioning phase, significant differences were observed in the 100–400 ms. post-stimulus region reflecting a CS+ processing negativity. Brain activity does indeed index the acquisition of a conditional response to subthreshold stimuli. Associative learning can occur outside awareness. (shrink)

This article compares research in neuroscience regarding the right and left hemispheres of the brain, particularly in the work of Iain McGilchrist and Robert Ornstein, with Whitehead’s perception in the mode of causal efficacy and in the mode of presentational immediacy, respectively.

Neuroscientific studies have shown that brain activity correlated with a decision to move can be observed before a person reports being consciously aware of having made that decision . Given that a later event cannot cause an earlier one , such results have been interpreted as evidence that decisions are made unconsciously . We argue that this interpretation depends upon an all-or-none view of consciousness, and we offer an alternative interpretation of the early decision-related brain activity based on models in (...) which conscious awareness of the decision to move develops gradually up to the level of a reporting criterion. Under this interpretation, the early brain activity reflects sub-criterion levels of awareness rather than complete absence of awareness and thus does not suggest that decisions are made unconsciously. (shrink)

This article reports four subliminal perception experiments using the relationship between confidence and accuracy to assess awareness. Subjects discriminated among stimuli and indicated their confidence in each discrimination response. Subjects were classified as being aware of the stimuli if their confidence judgments predicted accuracy and as being unaware if they did not. In the first experiment, confidence predicted accuracy even at stimulus durations so brief that subjects claimed to be performing at chance. This finding indicates that subjects's claims that they (...) are ''just guessing'' should not be accepted as sufficient evidence that they are completely unaware of the stimuli. Experiments 2-4 tested directly for subliminal perception by comparing the minimum exposure duration needed for better than chance discrimination performance against the minimum needed for confidence to predict accuracy. The latter durations were slightly but significantly longer, suggesting that under certain circumstances people can make perceptual discriminations even though the information that was used to make those discriminations is not consciously available. (shrink)

Contemporary studies in unconscious cognition are essentially founded on dissociation, i.e., on how it dissociates with respect to conscious mental processes and representations. This is claimed to be in so many and diverse ways that one is often lost in dissociation. In order to reduce this state of confusion we here carry out two major tasks: based on the central distinction between cognitive processes and representations, we identify and isolate the main dissociation paradigms; we then critically analyze their key tenets (...) and reported findings. (shrink)

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive (...) science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience . From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that a correct analysis of knowledge must take empirical data into consideration. The data here provided is from experimental psychology, namely from phenomena involving unconscious cognition.