3/20/2013 The Freudian 20th Century “Freud in 21st-Century America” The Unconscious Mind: Kinder and Gentler Than That John F. Kihlstrom Forbidden Planet (1956) Department of Psychology University of California, Berkeley 1 2 The Discovery of the Unconscious Petites Perceptions Ellenberger (1970) Leibniz (1704/1981); Ellenberger (1970) • At every moment there is in us an infinity of perceptions, unaccompanied by awareness or reflection…. That is why we are never indifferent, even when we appear to be most so…. The choice that we make arises from these insensible stimuli, which… make us find one direction of movement more comfortable than the 3 other. 4 The Limen Unconscious Inferences Herbart (1819) Helmholtz (1866/1968) • One of the older ideas can… be • The psychic activities that lead us to infer that completely driven out of consciousness by there in front of us at a certain place there is a a new much weaker idea. On the other certain object of a certain character, are generally hand its pressure there is not to be not conscious activities, but unconscious ones. In regarded as without effect; rather it works their result they are the equivalent to conclusion…. with full power against the ideas which are But what seems to differentiate them from a conclusion, in the ordinary sense of that word, is present in consciousness. It thus causes that a conclusion is an act of conscious thought…. a particular state of consciousness, though Still it may be permissible to speak of the psychic its object is in no sense really imagined. acts of ordinary perception as unconscious 5 conclusions…. 6 1 3/20/2013 The Philosophy of the Unconscious Critiques of Hartmann Ebbinghaus (1873); James (1890) Hartmann (1869); Ellenberger (1970) • Universe Ruled by The Unconscious “Wherever the structure is touched, it falls – Absolute Unconscious apart…. What is true is alas not new; the new – Physiological Unconscious not true” – Relative Unconscious • Forms and Preserves the Organism “Hartmann fairly boxes the compass of the • Instinct for Self-Preservation universe with the principle of unconscious • Sexual and Maternal Love thought. For him there is no namable thing that • Guides Action does not exemplify it. But his logic is so lax and • Inspires Conscious Thought • Engenders Feelings of Beauty his failure to consider the most obvious alternative so complete that it would, on the – “The Unconscious can really outdo all the whole, be a waste of time to look at his performances of conscious reason” 7 arguments in detail.” 8 The Contradiction of the Unconscious A Tumbling-Ground for Whimsies? Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798) James, Principles of Psychology (1890), p. 163 To have ideas, and yet not be conscious of them, -- The distinction… between the unconscious and the conscious there seems to be a contradiction in being of the mental state… is the that; for how can we know that we sovereign means for believing what have them, if we are not one likes in psychology, and of conscious of them? turning what might become a science Nevertheless, we may become into a tumbling-ground for whimsies. aware indirectly that we have an idea, although we be not directly cognizant of the same. 9 10 The Unconscious “Hysterics Suffer from Reminiscences” in Psychodynamic Theory Breuer & Freud (1893-1895) • Psychoanalysis Leads to Insight • Conflict Engenders Anxiety – Unconscious Determinants – Primitive Sexual and Aggressive Impulses • Insight Allows Rational Coping – Demands of External Reality – Demands of Conscience • Classical Psychoanalysis – Theory of Infantile Sexuality • Repression Reduces Anxiety – Ego, Id, Superego – Supplemented by Other Defenses • “Neo-Freudian” Theories • Symbolic Expressions Persist – Objects-Relations – Dreams, Symptoms 11 – Ego-Psychology 12 2 3/20/2013 The Topographical Theory The Structural Theory Breuer & Freud (1893-1895); Freud (1900) Freud (1923) • Tripartite Division of Mind: Three Systems • Three Mental Functions – Ucs. (Unconscious) – Id (Seat of Instincts) – Pcs. (Preconscious) • Mostly Unconscious – Cs. (Conscious) • Emotions Conscious – Ego (Cognitive, Defensive) • Mostly Conscious (through Pcs.) • Defenses Unconscious – Superego (Conscience, Norms) 13 14 Three Meanings of “Unconscious” Problems with Freud’s Clinical Evidence Freud (1915) Grunbaum (1984, 1986); Von Eckardt (1986) • Descriptive 1. Suggestibility – Thoughts, Feelings, Desires Not in Awareness 2. Tally Argument 3. Consilience Argument 4. Introspective Access • Systematic 5. Treatment Success – Preconscious Ideas Available to Consciousness 6. Slips and Dreams 7. Free-Association • Dynamic – Precluded from Consciousness by Repression Interpretation Overdeterminism 15 16 The Freudian Defense Mechanisms The Freudian Defense Mechanisms After Suppes & Warren (1975) After Suppes & Warren (1975) • “I love my mother” • Conflictual affect • “I love my mother” –Actor –I • “I hate [fear] my father” –Action – Love – Castration Anxiety – Object –My Mother • Must repress love of mother, fear of father – Render it Unconscious • Displacement • “I love my father” – Find Acceptable Substitute – Change object • Permit it Conscious Representation 17 18 3 3/20/2013 The Freudian Defense Mechanisms The Freudian Defense Mechanisms After Suppes & Warren (1975) After Suppes & Warren (1975) • Conflictual affect • “I love my mother” • Conflictual affect • “I love my mother” – Actor, Action, Object – Actor, Action, Object • Displacement • “I love my father” • Displacement • “I love my father” – Change object – Change object • Reaction Formation • Reaction Formation – Change action • “I hate my mother” – Change action • “I hate my mother” • Projection – Change actor • “Saddam loves my mother” 23 = 8 Transformations = 44 Defense Mechanisms 19 20 The Freudian Defense Mechanisms The Waxing and Waning After Suppes & Warren (1975) of the Unconscious • Conflictual affect • “I love my mother” • Popularity of the Psychodynamic View – Actor, action, Object – Including “High”, Popular Culture • Displacement • “I love my father” – Change object • Behaviorist Revolution – Unconscious Mental Life Doubly Unobservable • Reaction Formation • “I hate my mother” – Change action • Cognitive Revolution • Projection • “Saddam loves my mother” – Helmholtz: Unconscious Inferences in Perception – Change actor – Chomsky: Unconscious Grammatical Knowledge • “Trifecta” Defense • “Saddam hates my dad” – Multistore Model of Memory – Change all three • Unconscious as Wastebasket 21 22 • Preconscious = Preattentive Late and Early Selection in Attention Multi-Store Model of Memory Waugh & Norman (1965) Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) S1 S2 Semantic Analysis Physical Rehearsal A S3 Analysis S4 Early Selection S5 Encoding Attention Long-Term Store S1 (Secondary Memory) S2 Retrieval Semantic Registers Sensory Short-Term Store Short-Term Physical Memory) (Primary S3 B Analysis Analysis S4 Late Selection S5 23 Pattern Recognition 24 4 3/20/2013 Automaticity Defined After LaBerge & Samuels (1974); Posner & Snyder (1975); Schneider & Shiffrin (1977); Schiffrin & Schneider (1977) The Stroop • Inevitable Evocation Interference • Incorrigible Completion (Ballistic) Experiment • Efficient Execution Stroop (1935) • Parallel Processing • Unconscious in the Strict Sense of the Term – Operate outside phenomenal awareness – Operate outside voluntary control 25 26 “The part of our brain that leaps to “Intentionality is the Mark of the Mental” conclusions… is called the adaptive Brentano (1874); Russell (1912) unconscious, and the study of this kind of decision making is one of the most important new fields in Mental States psychology. are Representational “The adaptive unconscious is not to be confused with the unconscious described by Sigmund Freud, which was a dark and murky place filled • Propositional Attitudes • Cognitive Faculties with desires and memories and fantasies that were too disturbing for –I know that P – Perception us to think about consciously. –I believe that P – Memory “This new notion of the adaptive unconscious is thought of, instead, as – Learning a kind of giant computer that quickly – Thinking and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order to keep • Noncognitive Faculties functioning as human beings.” –I feel [that] P – Emotion (Affect) Gladwell (2005), p. 11 –I desire [that] P – Motivation (Conation) 27 28 Explicit and Implicit Memory Priming Effects in Amnesia After Schacter (1987) After Warrington & Weiskrantz (1970, Exp. 1) 1 • Explicit Memory 0.8 Group – Conscious Recollection 0.6 Controls • Recall, Recognition Amnesics 0.4 • Any effect of a past event on subsequent 0.2 experience, thought, or action Proportion of Targets of Proportion 0 – Absence of Conscious Recollection Free Recall Recognition Fragments • [Independent of Conscious Recollection] Memory Test 29 30 5 3/20/2013 Dissociations Between Explicit and Implicit Perception Explicit and Implicit Memory After Kihlstrom, Barnhardt, & Tataryn (1992) • Amnesic Syndrome • Explicit Perception • Electroconvulsive Therapy – Conscious Perception • General Anesthesia (?) • Detection, Distance, Motion, Form • Conscious Sedation • Identification, Categorization • Normal Aging, Dementia • Any effect of a current event on experience, thought, or action • Posthypnotic Amnesia – Absence of Conscious Perception • Dissociative Disorders • [Independent of Conscious Perception] – Psychogenic Amnesia, Fugue, Multiple Personality 31 32 Dissociations Between Masked Semantic Priming Explicit and Implicit Perception Marcel (1983a), Experiment