An Exploratory Analysis of Collective Patterns of Conscious Experience Using a Self-Report Questionnaire.

Ovidiu Brazdau,Sona Ahuja,Valita Jones,Carlo Monsanto,Sperry Andrews,Keith Fiveson,Sadhna Sharma,Cristian-Dan Opariuc

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.634677

Abstract

This study is an exploration of collective patterns of conscious experience, as described by various psychological models, using a self-report questionnaire: The Consciousness Quotient Inventory (CQ-i). The CQ-i evaluates patterns of behaviors, attitudes, and attentional styles as well as the usage of conscious skills, awareness, and the capacity to “feel awake and alive,” providing a complex exploration of conscious experience. A set of 237 items covering major aspects of the subjective conscious experience was selected to detect the phenomenal patterns of subjective conscious experience. An exploratory factor analysis on a large sample (N = 2,360), combined with our previous meta-research on conceptual convergence of conscious experiences, revealed that these experiences appear to have 15 patterns common to all of us. A sample with a quasi-normal distribution (n = 2,266) was employed for standardization and classification of scores (M = 100; SD = 15). The study provides a conceptual framework for future in-depth studies on collective patterns of self-awareness, inner growth dynamics, and psychological maturity.

Highlights

The axes analysis showed that a model with 14 scales would be optimal, as all the 37 axes fit into 14 patterns, and there was no need for additional fragmentation
For loadings between 0.3 and 0.5, the allocation was performed using the meta-research on conceptual convergence of conscious experiences (Brazdau, 2018)
A set of 237 items covering all major aspects of subjective conscious experience was selected to detect the phenomenal patterns of subjective conscious experience

Summary

Introduction

The concepts of consciousness and states of consciousness have been debated across different scientific communities including psychology and cognitive science, philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, and physics (Tart, 1975; Baars, 1986, 1999; Wolman and Ullman, 1986; Damasio, 1989; Natsoulas, 1992; Penrose, 1994; Crick and Koch, 1995; Chalmers, 1996; Cohen and Schooler, 1997; Hameroff et al, 1998; Varela and Shear, 1999; Metzinger, 2002). Bernard Baars felt the need to emphasize this issue decades ago, by writing a paper titled There is already a field of systematic phenomenology, and it’s called Psychology, where he mentions that “the things we humans can report accurately are the same things we experience as conscious! From a cognitive-behavioral perspective, conscious processes have been operationally defined as events that can be reported and acted upon with verifiable accuracy and under optimal reporting conditions (Baars et al, 2003)

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Conclusion