DOCSLIB.ORG

Probing the Unconscious Mind Cognitive Psychology Is Mapping the Capabilities We Are Unaware We Possess by Christof Koch

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Probing the Unconscious Mind Cognitive Psychology Is Mapping the Capabilities We Are Unaware We Possess by Christof Koch (consciousness redux) Probing the Unconscious Mind Cognitive psychology is mapping the capabilities we are unaware we possess BY CHRISTOF KOCH SIGMUND FREUD popular- Van Opstal and his col- ized the idea of the uncon- leagues proved the oppo- scious, a sector of the mind site in an indirect but clever that harbors thoughts and and powerful way. memories actively removed A quartet of single- from conscious deliberation. digit Arabic numbers (1 Because this aspect of mind through 9, excluding the is, by definition, not accessi- numeral 5) are projected ble to introspection, it has onto a screen. Volunteers proved difficult to investi- had to indicate as quickly gate. Today the domain of as possible whether or not the unconscious—described the average of the four pro- more generally in the realm jected numbers exceeded of cognitive neuroscience as 5. Every trial was preceded any processing that does not by a hidden cue that could give rise to conscious aware- be valid or invalid. The cue ness—is routinely studied in consisted of a very brief hundreds of laboratories us- flash of another set of four ing objective psychophysical numbers whose average techniques amenable to sta- was either smaller or larg- tistical analysis. Let me tell er than 5 [see illustration you about two experiments below]. These were pre- that reveal some of the capabilities of the lands and Stanislas Dehaene of the Col- ceded and followed by hash marks at the unconscious mind. Both depend on lège de France in Paris. Dehaene, director location of the flashed numbers. The “masking,” as it is called in the jargon, of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuro- marks effectively masked the cue so that ) or hiding things from view. Subjects imaging Unit, is best known for his inves- no subject ever consciously saw this quar- look but don’t see. tigations of the brain mechanisms under- tet. Forcing them to guess whether the av- lying counting and numbers. Here he ex- erage of the four hidden numbers was less Unconscious Arithmetic plored the extent to which a simple sum than or greater than 5 did not work ei- The first experiment is a collaboration or an average can be computed outside the ther: they were at chance. among Filip Van Opstal of Ghent Univer- pale of consciousness. Adding 7, 3, 5 and Yet the cue still influenced the sub- woman in clothes hanger clothes in woman sity in Belgium, Floris P. de Lange of Rad- 8 is widely assumed to be a quintessential ject’s reaction to the main response. If the ( boud University Nijmegen in the Nether- serial process that requires consciousness. implicit cue was valid, the response to the target was consistently faster than if the cue was invalid. In the illustration, the Getty Images In the experiment, subjects saw four numbers for 600 milliseconds and had to judge quickly whether their average exceeded 5. Masks with hash marks ensured that the four cued numbers mean of the four invisible cues (3.75) is M were not consciously seen. The unconscious was nonetheless able to estimate the average. less than 5, whereas the average of the vis- LIA. U ible target numbers is greater than 5. Re- ); Y Start Mask Cue Mask Target solving this conflict demands additional 1 Koch processing time (about ⁄40 of a second). # 2 # 8 + #+ # 6 +1 # + # 7+ 3 That is, the cue triggers neural activity # 6 # 6 representing the assertion “less than 5,” which interferes with the rapid establish- HRISTOF KOCH ( KOCH HRISTOF Time ment of a coalition of neurons represent- C 20 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND November/December 2011 The ability to rapidly integrate disparate elements in a scene ( and place them in context is a hallmark of consciousness. ) ing “greater than 5.” That invisible and these pictures: a woman puts a chess- undetectable cues influence behavior im- board into the oven, the cocked arrow is plies that the unconscious can somehow replaced by a tennis racket, and the bas- estimate the average of four single digits. ketball becomes a watermelon. The psy- It is unlikely that it does so following the chologists made sure that both congru- precise, algebraic rules children learn in ent and incongruent images were truly grade school. Instead it may rely on heu- invisible and could not be distinguished ristics: for example, for each number from one another when masked in this larger than 5, increase the probability of way. This discovery implies that the un- pushing the greater than 5 button. conscious can recognize something is This is just the latest in a flurry of ex- amiss in these images, that the object periments demonstrating so-called en- handled by the person in the image is not semble coding, the ability of the mind to appropriate to the context. guesstimate the dominant emotional ex- How the mind recognizes that some- pression of a crowd of faces or the ap- thing is wrong is puzzling. Maybe be- proximate size of a bunch of dots even cause the vast and tangled neural net- though the individual faces or dots are works of the cerebral cortex that encode not consciously perceived. images have learned that certain objects go together but others do not (akin to the What’s Wrong with this Picture? software programs—bots—that Google Liad Mudrik and Dominique Lamy and other search engines employ to trawl of Tel Aviv University and Assaf Breska the Internet to list all images, sentences and Leon Y. Deouell of the Hebrew Uni- and Web pages so when you search for versity in Jerusalem set out to test the ex- them they are readily accessible). Given tent to which the unconscious can inte- the sheer infinite number of possible grate all the information in any one pic- pairings of objects and context, is this so- ture into a unified and coherent visual lution likely to be done by the brain? Or experience. Giulio Tononi and I had pro- The unconscious mind can tell if there is maybe the masking techniques suppress posed in the last Consciousness Redux something amiss in these doctored images. visibility of the image but do not fully column [September/October 2011] that eliminate conscious access to them? the ability to rapidly integrate all the dis- The fascinating aspect of the Mudrik Only more research will tell. In this way, parate elements within a scene and place study is that the time to become visible we shall ultimately know the capabilities them into context is one of the hall- depends on the content of the image. Re- of the cognitive unconscious and the tru- marks of consciousness. alistic scenes that depict a woman plac- ly essential function that consciousness The Israeli researchers used “continu- ing a pizza into an oven, a boy taking aim plays in our life. M ous flash suppression,” a powerful mask- with a bow and arrow, or a basketball ing technique, to render images invisible. player dunking a ball into a hoop took CHRISTOF KOCH is Lois and Victor Troendle A series of rapidly changing, randomly 2.64 seconds to become visible, whereas Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology colored patterns was flashed into one eye unnatural scenes were masked for only at the California Institute of Technology and while a photograph of a person carrying 2.50 seconds, a small but significant dif- chief scientific officer at the Allen institute for out some task was slowly faded into the ference. That is, the unconscious mind Brain Science in Seattle. He serves on Scien- Tel AvivTel University other eye. For a few seconds, the picture detected something incongruent about tific American Mind’s board of advisers. DRIK is completely invisible, and the subject can Mu see only the colored shapes. Because the IAD images become progressively stronger, (Further Reading) L eventually they will break through, and ◆ Integration without Awareness: Expanding the Limits of Unconscious Processing. OF Y the subject will see them. It is like Harry Liad Mudrik, Assaf Breska, Dominique Lamy and Leon Y. Deouell in Psychological Science, Vol. 22, No. 6, pages 764–770; June 2011. RTES Potter’s cloak of invisibility fading with U ◆ Rapid Parallel Semantic Processing of Numbers without Awareness. Filip Van Opstal, Floris P. O C time and revealing what is underneath. de Lange and Stanislas Dehaene in Cognition, Vol. 120, No. 1, pages 136–147; July 2011. www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 21.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Personality Learning Theories
    Psychodynamic Theories Cognive Social Trait Theory Personality Learning Theories *An individual’s unique paern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that persists over me and across situaons. Humanisc Theories Issues in Personality 1. Free will or determinism? 2. Nature or nurture? 3. Past, present, or future? 4. Uniqueness or universality? 5. Equilibrium or growth? 6. Opmism or pessimism? Psychodynamic Theories Sigmund Freud Behavior is the product of psychological forces within the individual, oen Neo‐Freudians outside of conscious awareness Central Tenets 1) Much of mental life is unconscious. People may behave in ways they themselves don’t understand. 2) Mental processes act in parallel, leading to conflicng thoughts and feelings. 3) Personality paerns begin in childhood. Childhood experiences strongly affect personality development. 4) Mental representaons of self, others, and relaonships guide interacons with others. 5) The development of personality involves learning to regulate aggressive and sexual feelings as well as becoming socially independent rather than dependent. Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud • The human PERSONALITY is an energy system. • It is the job of psychology to invesgate the change, transmission and conversion of this ‘psychic energy’ within the personality which shape and determine it. These Drives are the ‘Energy’ Structure of the Mind – Id – Super‐ego – Ego Id • Exists enrely in the unconscious (so we are never aware of it). • Our hidden true animalisc wants and desires. • Works on the Pleasure Principle • Avoid pain and receive instant graficaon. Ego If you want to be with someone. Your id says just take them, but your ego does not want to end up in jail.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Time and the Unconscious Mind
    Time and the Unconscious Mind: A Brief Commentary Julia Mossbridge, M.A., Ph.D. Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208 Founder and Research Director, Mossbridge Institute, LLC, Evanston, IL 60202 Please send correspondence to Julia Mossbridge: [email protected] Most of us think we know some basic facts about how time works. The facts we believe we know are based on a few intuitions about time, which are, in turn, based on our conscious waking experiences. As far as I can tell, these intuitions about time are something like this: 1) There is a physical world in which events occur, 2) These events are mirrored by our perceptual re-creation of them in essentially the same order in which they occur in the physical world, 3) This re-creation of events occurs in a linear order based on our conscious memory of them (e.g., event A is said to occur before event B if at some point we do remember event A but we don’t yet remember event B, and at another point we remember both events), 4) Assuming we have good memories, what we remember has occurred in the past and what we don’t remember but we can imagine might: a) never occur, b) occur when we are not conscious, or c) occur in the future. These intuitions are excellent ones for understanding our conscious conception of ordered events. However, they do not tell us anything about how the non-conscious processes in our brains navigate events in time. Currently, neuroscientists assume that neural processes of which we are unaware, that is, non-conscious processes, create conscious awareness as a reflection of physical reality (Singer, 2015).
    [Show full text]
  • Unit 10 — Personality
    UNIT 10 — PERSONALITY Vocabulary Term Definition of Term Example Personality An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, Aggressive, funny, acting. Free Association In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. Psychoanalysis Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and Therapy through talking. actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions. Unconscious According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable Id, Repression- forcible thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to blocking of unacceptable contemporary psychologists, information processing of which passions and thoughts. we are unaware. Id Contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, Needs, drives, instincts, and according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and repressed material. What we aggressive drives; operates on the pleasure principle, want to do. demanding immediate gratification. Ego The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, What we can do; reality according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality; operates under the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. Superego The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents Operates based on the Moral internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the Principle. What we should do. conscience) and for future aspirations. Psychosexual Stages The childhood stages of development during which, according Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, to Freud, the id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct Genital erogenous zones.
    [Show full text]
  • A Dangerous Method
    A David Cronenberg Film A DANGEROUS METHOD Starring Keira Knightley Viggo Mortensen Michael Fassbender Sarah Gadon and Vincent Cassel Directed by David Cronenberg Screenplay by Christopher Hampton Based on the stage play “The Talking Cure” by Christopher Hampton Based on the book “A Most Dangerous Method” by John Kerr Official Selection 2011 Venice Film Festival 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, Gala Presentation 2011 New York Film Festival, Gala Presentation www.adangerousmethodfilm.com 99min | Rated R | Release Date (NY & LA): 11/23/11 East Coast Publicity West Coast Publicity Distributor Donna Daniels PR Block Korenbrot Sony Pictures Classics Donna Daniels Ziggy Kozlowski Carmelo Pirrone 77 Park Ave, #12A Jennifer Malone Lindsay Macik New York, NY 10016 Rebecca Fisher 550 Madison Ave 347-254-7054, ext 101 110 S. Fairfax Ave, #310 New York, NY 10022 Los Angeles, CA 90036 212-833-8833 tel 323-634-7001 tel 212-833-8844 fax 323-634-7030 fax A DANGEROUS METHOD Directed by David Cronenberg Produced by Jeremy Thomas Co-Produced by Marco Mehlitz Martin Katz Screenplay by Christopher Hampton Based on the stage play “The Talking Cure” by Christopher Hampton Based on the book “A Most Dangerous Method” by John Kerr Executive Producers Thomas Sterchi Matthias Zimmermann Karl Spoerri Stephan Mallmann Peter Watson Associate Producer Richard Mansell Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant Director of Photography Peter Suschitzky, ASC Edited by Ronald Sanders, CCE, ACE Production Designer James McAteer Costume Designer Denise Cronenberg Music Composed and Adapted by Howard Shore Supervising Sound Editors Wayne Griffin Michael O’Farrell Casting by Deirdre Bowen 2 CAST Sabina Spielrein Keira Knightley Sigmund Freud Viggo Mortensen Carl Jung Michael Fassbender Otto Gross Vincent Cassel Emma Jung Sarah Gadon Professor Eugen Bleuler André M.
    [Show full text]
  • Individuation As Spiritual Process: Jung’S Archetypal Psychology and the Development of Teachers
    Individuation as Spiritual Process: Jung’s Archetypal Psychology and the Development of Teachers Kathleen Kesson See the published version in the journal: ENCOUNTER: EDUCATION FOR MEANING AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Winter 2003, 16 (4). “…The spirit has its homeland, which is the realm of the meaning of things… -Saint Exupéry The Wisdom of the Sands In the mid-1970s, curriculum theorist James Macdonald, in his discussion of various ideologies of education, proposed a category that he called the “transcendental developmental ideology.” This perspective would correct what he thought was the limiting, materialist focus of the radical or political view of education, which he considered a “hierarchical historical view that has outlived its usefulness both in terms of the emerging structure of the environment and of the psyches of people today” (Macdonald 1995, 73). The transcendental developmental ideology would embrace progressive and radical social values, according to Macdonald, but would be rooted in a deep spiritual awareness. Drawing upon the work of M.C. Richards (1989), he used the term “centering” to signify this form of consciousness. Macdonald termed his methodology of development a “dual dialectic,” a praxis involving reflective transaction between the individual ego and the inward subjective depths of the self, as well as between the ego and the outer objective structures of the environment. This method grew out of his critique of existing developmental theories (see Kohlberg and Mayer, 1972), which he thought neglected one or another aspect of this praxis, thus failing to take into account the full dimension of human “being.” Macdonald was influenced by the work of C.G.
    [Show full text]
  • Everyday Bias: Further Explorations Into How the Unconscious Mind
    Everyday Bias Further Explorations into How the Unconscious Mind Shapes Our World at Work An Evolving Understanding of Unconscious Bias Offers Opportunities for Improving Performance at Your Place of Work by Howard Ross, Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Cook Ross Inc. Everyday Bias: Further Explorations into How the Unconscious Mind Shapes Our World at Work An Evolving Understanding of Unconscious Bias Offers Opportunities for Improving Performance at Your Place of Work by Howard Ross, Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Cook Ross Inc. INTRODUCTION Hurricanes were exclusively assigned female What they found was fascinating. names until the late 1970’s. Since then, the World Meteorological Association (WMA) has It turns out that there is a dramatic difference alternatively given them male and female names. between the average death rates of the storms In May of 2014, the Proceedings of the National named for men (23) and those named for women Academy of Science released the results of an (45). Was this because the WMA chose female interesting study from the University of Illinois1. names for the harshest storms? Not unless they Researchers analyzed more than sixty years had a crystal ball. The names, it turns out, are of death tolls from ninety four hurricanes that designated years before the actual hurricanes. occurred in the United States between 1950 The difference, it seems, lies not in the naming and 2012. They removed two hurricanes whose of the storms, but in the reaction to the storms’ death tolls were so dramatically greater than the names. “People may be dying as a result of the others that they would skew the data: Hurricane femininity of a hurricane (name),” said Sharon Katrina, which killed approximately 1,500 people Shavitt, one of the studies co-authors.
    [Show full text]
  • THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND Sebastian Gardner
    XML 052159104Xc08.xml CU979-Baldwin March 17, 2003 20:54 8 THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND sebastian gardner INTRODUCTION The concept of the unconscious is now so firmly associated with Sigmund Freud that an alternative conception of the unconscious, one which is not in some way dependent on or derived from that of psychoanalysis, is hard to imagine at present. Yet, as studies of the prehistory of psychoanalysis emphasise, by no means did Freud introduce the concept from scratch: already by 1900, when Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams) appeared, the unconscious was a well-established intellectual topic (the classic studies of psychoanalysis’s ancestry are Ellenberger 1970 and Whyte 1979; see also Brandell 1979: ch. 8, Decker 1977: ch. 9, and Ellenberger 1993: chs. 1–2; Freud’s debts are acknowledged in Jones 1953:I,435–6). Throughout the period 1870 to 1914 the concept of the unconscious was, however, in comparison with its psychoanalytic version, indeterminate in several respects. This reflects its deep involvement with two broader issues in later nineteenth-century philosophy, namely the disentangling of psychology as an autonomous discipline from philosophy, and the opposition between ascendant materialistic naturalism and the contrary impulse to preserve something of the metaphysical systems which had dominated the first three decades of the century (for a different suggestion as to why the unconscious appeared in Western thought, see Foucault 1966 [1974: 326–7]). THE CONCEPT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS The concept of the unconscious entered the scene in the latter half of the nineteenth century from two directions. First, unconscious mental entities and processes were explicitly postulated many times over in the context of nascent empirical psychology.
    [Show full text]
  • How Freud Changed What People Thought About the Mind
    How Freud Changed What People Thought About the Mind AP Viggo Mortensen, left, plays Sigmund Freud and Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung in the film "A Dangerous Method" VOA Special English (voaspecialenglish.com) is Voice of America's daily news and information service for English learners. Read the story and then do the activities at the end. DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. I'm Doug Johnson. The movie "A Dangerous Method" is showing in theaters across the United States and in other countries. The film tells about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung -- two leaders in the use of psychotherapy to treat mental disorders. The work of Freud continues to influence many areas of modern culture. Today, Bob Doughty and Faith Lapidus explore his influence on psychotherapy. BOB DOUGHTY: Sigmund Freud was born May sixth, eighteen fifty-six, in Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. He lived most of his life in Vienna, Austria. Early in his adulthood, Freud studied medicine. By the end of the nineteenth century, he was developing some exciting new ideas about the human mind. But his first scientific publications dealt with sea animals, including the sexuality of eels. Special English is part of VOA Learning English: voanews.com/learningenglish | January 2012 | 1 FAITH LAPIDUS: Freud was one of the first scientists to make serious research of the mind. The mind is the collection of activities based in the brain that involve how we act, think, feel and reason. He used long talks with patients and the study of dreams to search for the causes of mental and emotional problems.
    [Show full text]
  • Everyday Bias: Further Explorations Into How the Unconscious Mind
    Everyday Bias Further Explorations into How the Unconscious Mind Shapes Our World at Work An Evolving Understanding of Unconscious Bias Offers Opportunities for Improving Performance at Your Place of Work by Howard Ross, Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Cook Ross Inc. Everyday Bias: Further Explorations into How the Unconscious Mind Shapes Our World at Work An Evolving Understanding of Unconscious Bias Offers Opportunities for Improving Performance at Your Place of Work by Howard Ross, Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Cook Ross Inc. INTRODUCTION Hurricanes were exclusively assigned female What they found was fascinating. names until the late 1970’s. Since then, the World Meteorological Association (WMA) has It turns out that there is a dramatic difference alternatively given them male and female names. between the average death rates of the storms In May of 2014, the Proceedings of the National named for men (23) and those named for women Academy of Science released the results of an (45). Was this because the WMA chose female interesting study from the University of Illinois1. names for the harshest storms? Not unless they Researchers analyzed more than sixty years had a crystal ball. The names, it turns out, are of death tolls from ninety four hurricanes that designated years before the actual hurricanes. occurred in the United States between 1950 The difference, it seems, lies not in the naming and 2012. They removed two hurricanes whose of the storms, but in the reaction to the storms’ death tolls were so dramatically greater than the names. “People may be dying as a result of the others that they would skew the data: Hurricane femininity of a hurricane (name),” said Sharon Katrina, which killed approximately 1,500 people Shavitt, one of the studies co-authors.
    [Show full text]
  • Our Unconscious Mind
    PSYCHOLOGY OurUnconscıous Unconscious impulses and desires impel Mindwhat we think and do in ways Freud never dreamed of By John A. Bargh 32 Scientific American, January 2014 Illustrations by Tim Bower Photograph by Tktk Tktk Illustration by Artist Name January 2014, ScientificAmerican.com 33 John A. Bargh is a professor of psychology at Yale University. His Automaticity in Cognition, Motivation, and Evaluation Lab at Yale researches unconscious influences on behavior and questions such as the extent to which free will really exists. hen psychologists try to understand the way our mind works, they frequently come to a conclusion that may seem startling: people W often make decisions without having given them much thought—or, more precisely, before they have thought about them consciously. When we decide how to vote, what to buy, where to go on vacation and myriad other things, unconscious thoughts that we are not even aware of typically play a big role. Research has recently brought to light just how profoundly our unconscious mind shapes our day-to-day interactions. One of the best-known studies to illustrate the power of the For more than 100 years the role of unconscious influences on unconscious focused on the process of deciding whether a candi- our thoughts and actions has preoccupied scientists who study date was fit to hold public office. A group of mock voters were giv- the mind. Sigmund Freud’s massive body of work emphasized en a split second to inspect portrait photographs from the Inter- the conscious as the locus of rational thought and emotion and net of U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Foundation-Certifica
    © Copyright The Counselling Foundation 2020 Foundation Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling Course Handbook 2020-2021 CONTENTS Introduction 2 The Counselling Foundation & The Foundation Certificate Course 3 Course Timetable 4 Training Centre Staff Team 5 The Core Elements of the Foundation Certificate Course 6 - 9 Course Reading Material 10 Course Outline 10 - 19 Assignment Marking and Feedback 20 - 21 The Harvard Referencing System 22 - 29 Course Procedures, Information & Regulations 30 - 31 Confidentiality Policy 32 - 33 Further Information about Your Training Centre 34 - 37 Frequently Asked Questions 38 Training at a Glance 39 1 © Copyright The Counselling Foundation 2020 Foundation Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling Introduction Dear Trainee, It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to The Foundation Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling Skills and Theory: a 1-year non-qualifying counselling course offered by the Training Centre of The Counselling Foundation. The course aims to provide those who wish to develop counselling skills in work-based and other settings with the skills and knowledge, which will enhance and support their work. It also provides the grounding for further training to become a professional counsellor. Within this handbook, trainees will find much of the information needed for the academic year 2019- 2020. You are asked to read through the handbook thoroughly in order to familiarise yourself with all aspects of the course. Every effort has been made to provide you with comprehensive and detailed course information, however if you have any queries please contact your Seminar Tutor or Pam Firth the Programme Tutor for the Foundation Certificate Course. This year due to the pandemic of Covid-19 you will commence your training online.
    [Show full text]
  • The Neural Basis of the Dynamic Unconscious
    Neuropsychoanalysis, 2011, 13 (1) 5 The Neural Basis of the Dynamic Unconscious Heather A. Berlin (New York) A great deal of complex cognitive processing occurs at the unconscious level and affects how humans behave, think, and feel. Sci- entists are only now beginning to understand how this occurs on the neural level. Understanding the neural basis of consciousness requires an account of the neural mechanisms that underlie both conscious and unconscious thought, and their dynamic interac- tion. For example, how do conscious impulses, thoughts, or desires become unconscious (e.g., repression) or, conversely, how do unconscious impulses, desires, or motives become conscious (e.g., Freudian slips)? Research taking advantage of advances in technologies, like functional magnetic resonance imaging, has led to a revival and re-conceptualization of some of the key concepts of psychoanalytic theory, but steps toward understanding their neural basis have only just commenced. According to psychoanalytic theory, unconscious dynamic processes defensively remove anxiety-provoking thoughts and impulses from consciousness in re- sponse to one’s conflicting attitudes. The processes that keep unwanted thoughts from entering consciousness include repression, suppression, and dissociation. In this literature review, studies from psychology and cognitive neuroscience in both healthy and patient populations that are beginning to elucidate the neural basis of these phenomena are discussed and organized within a con- ceptual framework. Further studies in this emerging field at the intersection of psychoanalytic theory and neuroscience are needed. Keywords: unconscious; psychodynamic; repression; suppression; dissociation; neural “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” 1998a). Early psychodynamic theorists attempted to Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889–1951] explain phenomena observed in the clinic, but lat- er cognitive scientists used computational models of the mind to explain empirical data.
    [Show full text]