Principles of cognitive reverberation.

Abstract

A series of experiments was carried out as part of a continuing program of research based on a conceptual model of the mind. The specific function under empirical scrutiny was a cognitive feedback loop presumed to sustain network activity autonomously for a period of time until the loop gradually dies down. This reverberatory process was explored intensively in a female subject by means of a salience technique consisting of the oral presentation of a string of six consonants, to which she merely listened, and her subsequent report of whatever consonants spontaneously “popped into mind.” The interval between stimulus presentation and her report contained various filler activities, such as counting beats of a metronome or looking at colored travel slides, and varied in duration. The key experimental intervention was a brief excursion into deep hypnosis at some point during the interval, which served to disrupt cognitive processing and permitted inferences to be drawn concerning reverberation. The following principles were derived from the data:. 1. Reverberation consists of autonomous reactivation of a network by the signal transmitted from that network at the time of its original activation. 2. Reverberation takes place independently of conscious awareness. 3. The reverberating signal is strongest at the time of network activation and gradually decreases until it dissipates. 4. Barring disruption, a single series of reverberations from a transient network apparently can last for hours. 5. Reverberation acts to retard, in proportion to its own intensity, the intrinsic rate of decay in network strength. 6. The course of reverberation is a direct function of current amplification level in the system. 7. For a given level of amplification, strength of the reverberating signal is an inverse function of the strength of competing signals in process.