Abstract
The conscious field includes not only representations about external stimuli (e.g., percepts), but also conscious contents associated with internal states, such as action-related intentions (e.g., urges). Although understudied, the latter may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness. To illuminate these phenomena, in a new experimental paradigm [Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT)], participants were instructed to not subvocalize the names of visually-presented objects. Each object was presented for 10 s on a screen. Participants indicated whenever they involuntarily subvocalized the object name. Research has revealed that it is difficult to suppress such subvocalizations, which occur on over 80% of the trials. Can the effect survive if one intentionally generates a competing (internally-generated) conscious content? If so, this would suggest that intentional and unintentional contents can co-exist simultaneously in consciousness in interesting ways. To investigate this possibility, in one condition, participants were instructed to reiteratively subvocalize a speech sound (“da, da, da”) throughout the trial. This internally generated content is self-generated and intentional. Involuntary subvocalizations of object names still arose on over 80% of the trials. One could hypothesize that subvocalizations occurred because of the pauses between the intended speech sounds, but this is inconsistent with the observation that comparable results arose even when participants subvocalized a continuous, unbroken hum (“daaa….”) throughout the trial. Regarding inter-content interactions, the continuous hum and object name seem to co-exist simultaneously in consciousness. This intriguing datum requires further investigation. We discuss the implications of this new paradigm for the study of internally-generated conscious contents.
Highlights
It is a fact of common experience that the conscious field1 includes representations of external stimuli, and representations of internal states, such as actionrelated intentions
Less investigation has been devoted to illuminating contents associated with internal states such as action-related intentions and stimulus-independent mental imagery
To begin to fill this gap in the literature, in an experimental project, we examined the conscious contents associated with action-related intentions (“action-related contents,” for short) and with internally-generated, sustained mental imagery (“sustained imagery,” for short)
Summary
It is a fact of common experience that the conscious field includes representations of external stimuli (e.g., percepts), and representations of internal states, such as actionrelated intentions (e.g., urges, Merker, 2013). Most research in experimental psychology and neuroscience has focused on conscious contents associated with perceptuo-semantic processes, especially those that are triggered into existence by external stimuli (see reasons for this in Rosenbaum, 2005; Morsella, 2009). In our example, these kinds of content would be the perception of the table, the mug, and the sign for Coffee. Less investigation has been devoted to illuminating contents associated with internal states such as action-related intentions (the urge to have a sip of coffee) and stimulus-independent mental imagery (a song in one’s head). These phenomena may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness, insights that complement those obtained from more traditional, perception-based research (see Discussion, Morsella and Poehlman, 2013)
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