Abstract
In perceptual psychology, audition and introspection have not yet received as much attention as other topics (e.g., vision) and methods (third-person paradigms). Practical examples and theoretical considerations show that it nevertheless seems promising to treat both topics in conjunction to gain insights into basic structures of attention regulation and respective agentive awareness. To this end, an empirical study on voluntary auditory change was conducted with a non-reactive first-person design. Data were analyzed with a mixed methods approach and compared with an analogous study on visual reversal. Qualitative hierarchical coding and explorative statistics yield a cross-modal replication of frequency patterns of mental activity as well as significant differences between the modalities. On this basis, the role of mental agency in perception is refined in terms of different levels of intention and discussed in the context of the philosophical mental action debate as well as of the Global Workspace/Working Memory account. As a main result, this work suggests the existence and structure of a gradual and developable agentive attention awareness on which voluntary attention regulation can build, and which justifies speaking, in a certain sense, of attentional self-perception.
Highlights
In perceptual psychology and cognitive science, both audition and introspection have not yet received as much attention as other topics and methods – and especially not in this combination
One aim of the present study is to find out whether such a set of conscious perceptual intentions can be concretized in terms of attention regulation by involving first-person observation
The slight difference in first-person pronouns in the auditory and visual data seems to confirm this, it was not significant. Both results can be compiled as evidence for the high introspective accessibility of both senses with respect to their mental processing, whereas vision is less predestined in this context, likely due to stronger externalization. This view converges with the specific results of Level 2 in that the frequency patterns of mental activity in both modalities resemble each other and at the same time differ characteristically
Summary
In perceptual psychology and cognitive science, both audition and introspection have not yet received as much attention as other topics and methods – and especially not in this combination. Witzenmann describes the phenomenon of being disrupted from writing by radio noise from the neighbor and, being able to make disappear the unwanted sound by concentrating on the intended work (Witzenmann, 1989). What he highlights as even more interesting, is pausing and paying attention from work when the disturbing sound stops again. With other words, attention is aroused by the dynamics of one’s own attention regulation which, after an initial conscious impulse, had been pre-reflectively working until its reason vanished (see Cowan, 1988, p. 176f.)
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