Unconscious Influences Research Articles

Proactive control and agency

Can agents overcome unconscious psychological influences without being aware of them? Some philosophers and psychologists assume that agents need to be aware of psychological influences to successfully control behavior. The aim of this text is to argue that when agents engage in a proactive control strategy, they can successfully shield their behavior from some unconscious influences. If agents actively check for conflicts between their actions and mental states, they engage in reactive control. For engaging in reactive control, agents need awareness of those mental states which are in conflict with an action. In contrast, if agents are actively maintaining a goal in consciousness, they engage in proactive control. Proactive control does not consist of conflict detection or conflict resolution. I argue that proactive control explains how agents overcome unconscious psychological influences. In doing so, I claim that consciousness is important for engaging in reactive and proactive control.

Free will without consciousness?

Findings demonstrating decision-related neural activity preceding volitional actions have dominated the discussion about how science can inform the free will debate. These discussions have largely ignored studies suggesting that decisions might be influenced or biased by various unconscious processes. If these effects are indeed real, do they render subjects' decisions less free or even unfree? Here, we argue that, while unconscious influences on decision-making do not threaten the existence of free will in general, they provide important information about limitations on freedom in specific circumstances. We demonstrate that aspects of this long-lasting controversy are empirically testable and provide insight into their bearing on degrees of freedom, laying the groundwork for future scientific-philosophical approaches.

Konflikten mellem diskurs og figur

In this article, the author seeks to show how an ontologically conditioned conflict between discourse and figure defines a fundamental controversy over how an audience should and can view a rhetorical matter. Inspired by J.-F. Lyotard’s Discourse, figure (French 1971, English 2011), the author emphasizes that the figurality of an image in its primary appeal to the senses always already will have constituted the emotional disposition (pathos) with which an audience may feel called to identify. The author distinguishes sharply between the internal differences that constitute the ontology of an image and the external, dichotomously determined differences that a discourse produces between itself and an image. As an example of how this conflict between discourse and figure can manifest itself in the relationship between word and image in a political statement, the author analyzes a campaign poster published by The Danish People’s Party in 2009. The author further argues that the rhetorical critique of visual rhetoric in its prioritization of discourse typically overlooks the peculiar indeterminacy of images and its constitutive and thus unconscious influence on an audience.

Cognitive biases cloud our clinical decisions and patient expectations: A narrative review to help bridge the gap between evidence-based and personalized medicine.

In sports medicine and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal conditions, training, knowledge and expertise of clinicians are the guarantors of good clinical practice. But are they really? Since the 1970s, a growing body of sociological and behavioral science has developed the concepts of cognitive biases and thinking errors. In a nutshell, it tries to explain how we approach decision-making using shortcuts, or heuristics. Our brains will alternatively use 2 systems to think and decide: system 1 is fast, intuitive and emotional, whereas system 2 is slow, logical and conscious. We may think clinicians use the latter systematically, but they actually use system 1 in many situations. Whether due to intrinsic thinking errors or external forces that cloud our judgment, we are under unconscious influences and so are all the stakeholders in the rehabilitation setting, including the patient/athlete. We present some of the most prevalent biases that pervade clinical decision-making and attempt to give a bit of background context starting from the typical tension between academic authority and personal experience. The field of sports performance is also riddled with beliefs, egocentrism and a general tendency to search for magic bullets that will bring the marginal gains and edge over the competition. This plays into the rehabilitation of patient-athletes in different ways. Finally, there are ways to mitigate the effect of cognitive biases to improve decision-making. This must include better communication, shared decisions and ultimately the understanding that we should drive our profession to deliver high-value care tailored to the patients, in line with the best evidence at the best possible cost. Hopefully, we can shed some light without too many of our own biases on the complexities of thinking in sports medicine and rehabilitation.

Unconscious Influences on "Free Will" Movement Initiation: Slow-wave Brain Stimulation and the Readiness Potential.

A central objective in the study of volition has been to identify how changes in neural activity relate to voluntary-"free will"-movement. The readiness potential (RP) is observed in the EEG as a slow-building signal that precedes action onset. Many consider the RP as a marker of an underlying preparatory process for initiating voluntary movement. However, the RP may emerge from ongoing slow-wave brain oscillations that influence the timing of movement initiation in a phase-dependent manner. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) enables brain oscillations to be entrained at the frequency of stimulation. We delivered tACS at a slow-wave frequency over frontocentral motor areas while participants (n = 30) performed a simple, self-paced button press task. During the active tACS condition, participants showed a tendency to initiate actions in the phase of the tACS cycle that corresponded to increased negative potentials across the frontocentral motor region. Comparisons of premovement EEG activity observed over frontocentral and central scalp electrodes showed earlier onset and increased amplitude of RPs from active stimulation compared with sham stimulation. This suggests that movement-related activity in the brain can be modulated by the delivery of weak, nonconsciously perceptible alternating currents over frontocentral motor regions. We present novel findings that support existing theories, which suggest the timing of voluntary movement is influenced by the phase of slow-changing oscillating brain states.

Базисные концептуальные метафоры в системе чеченской поэтической образности

In this article, the authors consider the metaphor in accordance with the cognitive science achievements in the context of the figurative system of Chechen poetry of the XX century. Based on the analysis of the poetic texts of the word masters, basic metaphors, conceptually significant for the Chechen national consciousness, are revealed, that is, the emphasis is not on the occasional system of tropes and the individual author’s model of the world, but on what role mentally conditioned metaphorization plays in this system. The subject of the study is the ethnocultural concepts-metaphors “mountain”, “tower”, “river”, “burka”, “papakha”, “wolf”, “eagle”, “jigit (konakh)” and a number of others, which are characterized on the basis of classical lyrical works of Sh. Aishanov, A. Dudaeva, M. Isaeva, A. Mamakaeva, M. Mamakaeva The methodology of literary criticism and cognitive linguistics is used in this work. The analysis carried out by the authors of the publication allows us to conclude that the individual picture of the world is under the unconscious influence of national imagery, which is a part of the world national language picture, which makes it possible to encode in the poetic text the most significant axiological concepts for the ethnic group “honor”, “freedom”, “dignity”, “bravery”, “love for the native land”, “loyalty to the word” and others, the lexical and symbolic expressions of which are the concepts-metaphors indicated above.

The system of education and its interaction with the concept of spirituality

On the basis of the reforms carried out in our country, while the education system is in the main place, the changes that have taken place in the education system, the achievements gained in this regard and the existing problems are identified and proposals on their practical solutions are of great scientific and practical importance. The process of education and training embodies the sum of individual and social, conscious and unconscious influences on a person, is aimed at an individual, at a certain community, at a people or nation. This article examines the system of education and its interrelationships with the concept of spirituality.

The Pervasive Problem of Post Hoc Data Selection in Studies on Unconscious Processing.

Studies on unconscious mental processes typically require that participants are unaware of some information (e.g., a visual stimulus). An important methodological question in this field of research is how to deal with data from participants who become aware of the critical stimulus according to some measure of awareness. While it has previously been argued that the post hoc selection of participants dependent on an awareness measure may often result in regression-to-the-mean artifacts (Shanks, 2017), a recent article (Sklar et al., 2021) challenged this conclusion claiming that the consideration of this statistical artifact might lead to unjustified rejections of true unconscious influences. In this reply, we explain this pervasive statistical problem with a basic and concrete example, show that Sklar et al. fundamentally mischaracterize it, and then refute the argument that the influence of the artifact has previously been overestimated. We conclude that, without safeguards, the method of post hoc data selection should never be employed in studies on unconscious processing.

Basis for the formation of media anthropology in China (philosophical and anthropological analysis)

Due to the development of media resources, the influence of the Internet in China has led to significant changes in all spheres of life. As a result of the widespread use of media, we have witnessed changes in culture, lifestyles and individuals. Through analyzing the current media culture in China, we have concluded that the media has had a significant impact on education, democracy, aesthetics, literature, language and communication. Through media, human problems are exacerbated. Examples include, dependency on online media leading to the loss of subjectivity, excessive information without classification resulting in the “disappearance of childhood”, online media affecting the socialization of adolescents, etc. By examining media culture, we can say that a new philosophical orientation has been establishing in China, namely media anthropology, which focuses on the impact of media culture on people, both in virtual and real life. This is evidenced by the latest data from scientific publications. Turning to research in the field of philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, education and adding an ethnographic method, we analyzed the specifics of media culture in China and came to the following conclusions. First, the historicity and humanity of traditional culture have been transformed. Moreover, the value of culture has been disparaged due to the unconscious influence of online entertainment and the general commercial nature of network platforms. Second, people have accustomed themselves to communicating via online media in China. Yet this virtual communication eliminates the emotional component, leaving only instantaneous text input. Hence, by trying to maintain digital social contact, people have “fallen” into social dependence, and leading to exhaustion. Researchers have also noted that online reading is beginning to dominate over paper reading, especially for the younger generation. Because online media is extraordinarily complicated, mixed with images, colors, animation, and other elements, it distracts and prevents the reader from focusing on the content, as well as disrupting logical reading. Thus, under these new conditions of existence man’s issues are discussed under the direction of such philosophy as philosophical media anthropology.

The hidden life of the consumer mind

AbstractUnconscious influences permeate the everyday life of consumers. The scope of unconscious influences is greatly enhanced when the operational definition of “unconscious” shifts from the anachronistic “subliminal” one—whether the person is aware of the triggering information itself—to the far more common situation of being unaware of the influence of that stimulus. People are often unaware of how external events influence their choices and behavior, which is a good reason not to rely on self‐report measures of mediating internal mental processes. What are the main forms of mundane unconscious influence? (1) The person's primary evolved needs and motives and active goal pursuits, which operate unconsciously to exert a transformative effect on selective attention, preferences, and purchases, and consumption. These can be triggered through common external means such as grocery store handouts and emails from the boss. (2) Immediate preconscious perceptual inputs from the external environment influence seemingly “free” conscious choices. Finally, (3) postconscious processes have the same effects but come from the carry‐over of conscious experiences from one situation into the next. This is the domain of “nudges” or “priming effects” with many field studies as well as meta‐analyses demonstrating their validity and replicability.

Interpretation of Illness and Covid-19

Both during and following the global pandemic of Covid-19, there appears to be an increased need to rediscover purpose and promote physical and emotional well-being. The philosophy of social constructionism presents the opportunity to explore the socially inherited interpretations of illness and increase awareness of their often unconscious influence on our attitudes and choices. This article explores how application of this philosophy in occupational therapy might assist in improving outcomes for well-being.

Contagiosité des comportements humains : la réplication du bâillement peut-elle nous éclairer ?

Yawning is a stereotyped behavior, observed in cold-blooded and warm-blooded vertebrates, from reptiles with rudimentary “archaic” brains to human primates, in water, air, and land environments. Yawning appears to be an ancestral vestige maintained throughout evolution with little variation, bearing witness to its early phylogenetic origins. Three different types of yawning can be distinguished. “Universal yawning”, which is seen in all vertebrates, is associated with daytime circadian rhythms, i.e. sleep/arousal and hunger/satiety. “Emotional yawning”, which is only seen in mammals (and perhaps birds), has a calming effect after stress. Ethologists call this type of behavior a displacement activity. Finally, “contagious yawning”, which is observed only in great apes, in humans, in elephants, in dogs under certain conditions and perhaps in social parrots (budgerigar), rats and pigs, is the ability to respond to yawning in others. Experimental research indicates that contagious yawning relies on the capacity known as mental state attribution on one hand, and the capacity to build knowledge of mental states in oneself, on the other. These two conditions involve a “theory of mind” (TOM). This ability to infer mental states and emotions in others represents an evolved psychological capacity most highly developed in humans and, up to a point, in non-human primates and elephants. In addition, humans can also empathize with others, that is, share their feelings and emotions in the absence of any direct emotional stimulation to themselves. Innate emotional and motivational processes are found to exert unconscious and automatic influences on social judgments and behavior. Contagious yawning, the onset of a yawn triggered by seeing, hearing, reading, or thinking about another person yawning, occurs as a consequence of the ability to infer or empathize with what others want, know, or intend to do, requiring the neurological substrate responsible for self-awareness and empathic modeling, by which a corresponding response is produced in oneself. Functional imaging suggests that activation of the underlying network integrating these processes is also responsible for decoding cognitive empathy. As a neocortical activity (inferior-frontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus, ventral premotor cortex, right parietal cortex, posterior cingulate, anterior insula, and amygdala), contagious yawning is a sign of involuntary empathy. Thus, we see that, through evolution, a behavior can be recycled for different purposes according to the increasing complexity of the central nervous system, correlated with the richness of social interactions. Researches on this involuntary behavioral replication are an unrecognized avenue to study mimetic social processes.

Variations in investment advice provision: A study of financial advisors of millionaire investors

Vignette methodology is used to examine how the personal characteristics of investors and financial advisors contribute to portfolio recommendations, and the judgements that advisors make about investment knowledge and control of prospective millionaire UK clients. We find that advisors use investor characteristics to make recommendations broadly in line with economic theory and regulatory requirements. However, women are judged less knowledgeable and in control of their investments than equivalent men. They also receive portfolio recommendations with slightly lower risk profiles. Portfolio recommendations vary by advisor, with experienced advisors and those with wealthier clients recommending higher risk portfolios. Unmeasured advisor variables also impact on judgements and recommendations. These findings have relevance to the wealth management industry and regulators, in focusing attention on the conscious and unconscious influences on the judgements advisors make about their clients.

Per una pedagogia urbana o di una pedagogia implicita degli spazi urbani

The city narrates and its architectural structures convey their functions, their wealth, their power and sacredness. They can also tell a tale of violence and fear, of the logic of power, of discrimination and denial. They transmit information, implicit messages that shape and form, giving life to that “conditioning power” or “unconscious influence of the environment” which signifies pervasiveness and performativity or education. Cities, then, are potentially educational, but they can also be miseducational when they are at the service of anti-democratic and anti-educational logic. They can impoverish and transmit messages of hate, violence and discrimination by colonizing the minds and hindering reflective and creative thinking. Space, is then, a "pedagogical operator" which, in the wake of Foucauldian pedagogy, is able to influence the educational process, starting from the implicit pedagogy that insinuates itself into a structure, thus making it the daily spokesperson for ideologies.

Motivation problems of corrective motor-play activity of children with psychomotor disorders and possible ways of their solution

The article analyzes one of the main problems of physical rehabilitation of children with psychomotor disorders – the problem of motivation in corrective motor activity. This determined the aim – to determine the main directions of the motivational sphere formation in the process of correctional play activity of children with psychomotor disorders.
 The following research methods were used: the method of analysis, which made it possible to identify the main characteristics and types of motivational support of children for various types of activity; the method of pedagogical observations and the method of synthesis revealed the powerful method of motivating – theatricalization of the correctional process using physical education.
 The research results were expressed in the definition of the concepts: motive, motivational field, motivational impulse, which are the components of the concept of motivation, the variety of which is defined in four types.
 There were made following conclusions:
 
 The motivation of corrective motor-play activity is based on the unconscious influences of the unconscious, caused by the external use by the teacher of the corresponding children's fairy-tale archetypes and the emotional experiences, caused by them.
 One of the main methods of increasing motivation is the use of the possibilities of pedagogical "drama" in the form of a method of dosed dramatization of the motor-game plot of a remedial lesson, which should be considered as a physical culture fairy tale.
 For the implementation of effective dramatic motivation, it is necessary to provide points of dramatization of different influence strength.

Explanations of Research Misconduct, and How They Hang Together

In this paper, we explore different possible explanations for research misconduct (especially falsification and fabrication), and investigate whether they are compatible. We suggest that to explain research misconduct, we should pay attention to three factors: (1) the beliefs and desires of the misconductor, (2) contextual affordances, (3) and unconscious biases or influences. We draw on the three different narratives (individual, institutional, system of science) of research misconduct as proposed by Sovacool to review six different explanations. Four theories start from the individual: Rational Choice theory, Bad Apple theory, General Strain Theory and Prospect Theory. Organizational Justice Theory focuses on institutional factors, while New Public Management targets the system of science. For each theory, we illustrate the kinds of facts that must be known in order for explanations based on them to have minimal plausibility. We suggest that none can constitute a full explanation. Finally, we explore how the different possible explanations interrelate. We find that they are compatible, with the exception of explanations based on Rational Choice Theory and Prospect Theory respectively, which are incompatible with one another. For illustrative purposes we examine the case of Diederik Stapel.

Інтерпретація ціннісних диспозицій вихованців освітньо-реабілітаційних закладів України у контексті теорії архетипіки

The article uses the theoretical and methodological standpoint of Gilbert Durand’s theory of archetypes to interpret ethnic archetypes of Ukrainians, which are manifested in the set of value dispositions of students attending educational and rehabilitation institutions. The authors substantiate the idea that the influence of archetypal determinants in children is manifested primarily in value dispositions that act as potentials for their future behaviour; they are the projection of the collective unconscious influence on the social morality of a particular society and the formation of universal prototypes that determine the living environment of each individual and the entire community, eventually affecting the construction of social reality. Based on the survey conducted among senior students of educational and rehabilitation institutions of Ukraine, it is empirically shown that the value structure of student youth is formed mostly regardless of their gender, reflecting the main national archetypes (freedom-loving Cossack society, cordocentrism, the concept of “fertile land”, peasantry character, the image of Goddess-Mother) and includes such traits of national character as democratic nature, opulence, thrift, diligence, religiosity and respect for women. The article demonstrates the analytical and interpretative value of the conceptual trichotomy “diurnal – dramatic nocturnal – mystical nocturnal” introduced by G. Durand for understanding the archetypal pre-conditions of students’ choices of priority values. The authors analyse the specific features of the value sphere of students with disabilities: when compared to children without disabilities, they show lower indicators for almost all value points. It is suggested that these differences are evidence of the lesser manifestation of archetypes and national character traits due to preferential focusing on health issues, the need to monitor and control physical condition increasingly, coordination of movements, etc. Because of this, in students with disabilities, the postural reflex, which belongs to the sphere of the diurnal influence, retains its activity after reaching physical maturity and often manifests itself in the unprecedented psychological vitality of people belonging to this category.

Reflections of Le Corbusier on the work of Álvaro Siza

This research article navigates through the different common lines seen between the life and work of two of the most relevant architects of the 20th century: Le Corbusier and Álvaro Siza. Though belonging to different times, they both constitute indisputable examples of the architecture of their times, where several aspects in common appear, inviting us to think about the unconscious influence of the Swiss master on the work of the Portuguese architect over the years.

Dissociating conscious and unconscious influences on visual detection effects.

The scope of unconscious processing is highly debated, with recent studies showing that even high-level functions such as perceptual integration and category-based attention occur unconsciously. For example, upright faces that are suppressed from awareness through interocular suppression break into awareness more quickly than inverted faces. Similarly, verbal object cues boost otherwise invisible objects into awareness. Here, we replicate these findings, but find that they reflect a general difference in detectability not specific to interocular suppression. To dissociate conscious and unconscious influences on visual detection effects, we use an additional discrimination task to rule out conscious processes as a cause for these differences. Results from this detection-discrimination dissociation paradigm reveal that, while face orientation is processed unconsciously, category-based attention requires awareness. These findings provide insights into the function of conscious perception and offer an experimental approach for mapping out the scope and limits of unconscious processing.

САДОВО-ПАРКОВОЕ ИСКУССТВО КАК ЧАСТЬ ВСЕМИРНОГО ПРОЦЕССА КУЛЬТУРНОЙ ИНТЕГРАЦИИ

In the cultural space of the current period of history, the intensification of the process of cultural transfer contributes to changing the canonical circle of national creativity, including in landscape art. It is very rare to find gardens and parks, all the elements of which, including ideology, can be attributed to the cultural traditions of certain countries or ethnic groups. Over the past two millennia, the development of trade, military expansion and the spread of religious teachings to new territories have contributed to the transformation of national cultures - both through the processes of unconscious influence and conscious borrowing. To understand these processes, it is necessary to take into account a number of factors that allow foreign cultural traditions to take root, in our case, the traditions of decorative gardening. In some cases, there were cyclical processes of exodus and return of techniques and methods of park construction to the same region. For the most part, integration processes contributed to the loss of the cultural identity of peoples, but in exceptional cases they can also be considered as a progressive phenomenon, including in social terms, when comfortable recreation places in the city became available to residents regardless of their social status. The analysis of the facts presented in the article showed a close relationship between historical events and the stages of development of decorative gardening techniques, which have been preserved in gardens for thousands of years on a par with other cultural monuments. Therefore, understanding the modern interpretation of the ideal space, which has always been understood as a garden, is important for determining the trends in the development of the landscape art as a whole.