The Concept of Consciousness Part 2

-Stimuli nonconsciously perceived but unavailaЫe -Automatic -Early sensory Processes analysis Sensory lnput -Very hard to retrieve memories Procedural Knowledge memories Declarative Knowledge (episodic & semantic) FIGURE 1.1. А descriptive model of levels of consciousness. Levels are defined in terms of the availabllity of contents to reflectlve consciousness and introspective reporting. The trlangular shape of the diagram is lntended to convey the idea that the total amount of content tends to decrease at successively higher levels. As а particular content progresses from lower to higher levels it pre­ sumaЫy undergoes different types of processing, and the content is trans• formed at different levels or stages of processing. However, all contents at the same level of availaЬility are not necessarily at the same level for the same reason. For example, particular percepts (sensory perceptions of objects and events) and memories may Ье equally availaЫe to consciousness, but they are undergoing different types ofprocessing. Now I will try to describe or char• acterize the different levels of consciousness. Primary and Reflective Consciousness We can distinguish two types of (adult) human consciousness: primary consciousness and reflective consciousness. Primary consciousness is the direct experience of percepts and feelings, and thoughts and memories arising in direct response to them. It also includes spontaneously arising memories, thoughts, and images, including dreams and daydreams. Within primary consciousness, sensory percepts and emotional feelings are the most primi• tive aspects in that they occur in animals and preverbal children. Other as· pects develop later in childhood. Rqlective conscwusness consists of thoughts about one's own conscious experiences per se. In primary consciousness you are the suЬject who does the thinking, feeling, and acting in regard, mainly, to external objects and events. But in reflective consciousness your own conscious experiences­ percepts, thoughts, feelings, and actions-are the objects of your thoughts. Thus, in primary consciousness you might perceive an event (such as an au· tomoblle accident) and have thoughts about that event. But in reflective con· sciousness you might have thoughts not about the event itself, but about your thoughts concerning the event-asking yourself, "What did I think and feel, and why?" Reflective consciousness makes it possiЫe to judge our knowledge, to interpret our feelings, to revise and improve our thoughts, to evaluate our actions, and to plan future actions.9 For example, recently I had the primary conscious experiences of see· ing an acquaintance's face and hearing his voice ("I hear we're going to have freezing rain tonight."), ту thoughts in direct response to his words ("It could Ье dangerous. I' d better go home early tonight, before it starts."), and ту reply to him ("So what else is new? Freezing rain, this must Ье Maine!"). In the next moment I reflected on ту preceding thoughts and words: "That was а dumb thing to say. Why did I say that? It cut the conversation short. I was in а hurry. How dangerous will it get? Ат I really afraid? It's kind of scary. I don't want to have an accident like Julie's. But I can't Jeave early, I have too much work to do." Reflective consciousness is necessary for an elaborated selfawareness. Self•awareness involves the realization that you are а unique individual, sep· arate from others, with your own personal history and your own future. In reflective consciousness you relate your current experience to your· self con­ cept, which is your concept of your personal nature, including your desires, values, goals, interests, intellectual and physical abllities, and personality traits. Reflective consciousness includes the process of introspection, which means Iooking into one's own mind. In basic descriptive (phenomenologi· са!) introspection, you attempt merely to observe or recall your primary con· scious experiences without analyzing or interpreting them. Introspection can Ье а purely internal process, or you may try to communicate your intro• spections to others through introspective verbal reports. Thus, you must intro· spect to answer questions such as "How do you feel about that?" or "Why did you say that?" But reflective consciousness can go beyond mere observation or recall to include analysis and interpretation of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Reflective consciousness operates at а higher level than primary consciousness in that contents in reflective consciousness are more immedi­ ately availaЫe for introspective verbal reporting. In the early days of psy· chology it was thought that all mental contents and processes are open to introspection, but now we understand that introspection сап examine only what reaches primary consciousness. Reflective Consciousness is sometimes called "introspective awareness." The concept of reflective consciousness seems to imply at least а brief time gap between an event in primary consciousness and reflective thinking aЬout it. Sometimes the gap is large, as when we recall the events ofyesterday and try to evaluate and interpret them. But more commonly, primary con· sciousness and reflective consciousness are interwoven with each other so much that we cannot easily distinguish between them. We do not necessarily feel any difference between primary and reflective consciousness. The dis­ tinction is more abstract, and sometimes the boundary between them is fuzzy. One reason why it is hard to distinguish introspectively between pri­ mary and reflective consciousness is that whenever you try to think about your percepts and thoughts objectively as they happen, you are necessarily engaged in reflective consciousness. The distinction may Ье clearer if we take а more long-term retrospective view. For example, in many sports activ• ities-such as Alpine skiing, whitewater kayaking, racquetball, and basket­ ball-there are periods of several seconds at а time when you are totally in­ volved in what you are doing. You concentrate exclusively оп changes in the situation-the ski slope, the rapids, the position of your opponent and the ball-and оп making your next move. You operate in а state of relatively pure primary consciousness. You simply perceive and react, without asking yourself why. Only later, when there is а pause in the action, do you have the opportunity to recall what happened and reflect оп it and ask what you did right or wrong, and why, and how to do better next time. Neither primary nor reflective consciousness is а fixed, clearly defined capacity. Primary consciousness evolves in children as they mature and learn: perceptual awareness and emotional feelings соте first, mental imag­ ery and verbal thinking come later. Reflective consciousness develops out of primary consciousness. The complexity of reflective consciousness increases as the child's linguistic and other intellectual abilities develop. Humanist psychologists have emphasized the importance of reflective consciousness as а uniquely human capacity. Marian Кinget described reflec­ tive consciousness (awareness) and its significance: Reflective awareness [is] the abllity not only to know but to know that one knows-hence, the abllity to engage in imagination, self-scrutiny, scientific hy­ pothesizing, philosophical speculation, the evolution of а self-concept, artd similar internal behaviors without which the existence of countless observaЫe behaviors and products (e.g. literature, blography, ritual, and commemora­ tion) could not Ье accounted for (Kinget 1975, р. 3). Кinget quoted Rollo Мау on the relationship between primary and re­ flective awareness-the capacity to experience ourselves both as subject and object-and its significance: We are not simply describlng two alternate ways of behaving. Nor is it quite accurate to speak of our being subject and object simultaneously. The impor­ tant point is that our consciousness is а process of oscillaticn between the two. Indeed, is not this dialectical relationship between experiencing myself as sub­ ject and object just what consciousness consists of? The process of oscillation gives me potentiality-I can choose between them, can throw my weight on one side or the other.... It is the gap between the two ways of responding that is important. Му freedom, in any genuine sense, lies not in my capacity to 1ive as "pure subject," but rather in my capacity to experience both modes, to live in the dialectical relationship (Мау 1967, р. 9).'° Thus, primary and reflective awareness are not like two minds in one brain; rather, they are different aspects of the consciousness of а single person. Conscious experience in the normal adult human involves both pri­ mary and reflective consciousness. Some writers have defined consciousness strictly in terms of reflective consciousness, with the implication that ani• mals and young children who are incapaЫe of reflective consciousness are not conscious beings. But that view is too narrow. Mind exists at different levels of complexity. Some minds experience only perceptual awareness and emotional feelings, while others have а fuller primary consciousness that also includes mental images and verbal thoughts. At higher levels of com­ plexity the capacity for reflective consciousness develops. The entire levels-of-consciousness model (Figure 1.1) represents а still higher level of thought, meta-consciousness. Meta-consci.ousness is abstract thinking about consciousness itself, trying to understand its nature and its origin. Whereas reflective consciousness is strictly personal, meta-conscious­ ness is an attempt to draw general conclusions about consciousness that would apply to all humans, or to а]] conscious beings. Meta-consciousness theorizing may draw upon one's personal introspections, philosophy, litera­ ture, and scientific research and theory about cognitive processes and the brain. Reflective consciousness is presumaЫy а normal characteristic of adult humans, but meta-conscious thought is characteristic of only а minor­ ity of humans, namely psychologists, philosophers, scientists, writers, and others who are interested in mind and consciousness as topics of study. Focal and Peripheral Awareness The mental content-percept, thought, or feeling-that dominates your conscious awareness at the moment is infocal awareness (focal attention). Focal awareness can shift rapidly back and forth between different percepts, thoughts, and feelings in primary consciousness, or between primary con• sciousness and reflective consciousness. Peripheral awareness includes mental contents that are on the fringe of focal awareness. They сап Ье brought into focal awareness almost instantaneously through either voluntary or invo]un• tary (automatic) attention-switching processes. Peripheral awareness is at the border between conscious and nonconscious mind. Two types of content may Ье in peripheral awareness: (1) Stimuli of which one is vaguely aware and which are being processed automatically while focal awareness is directed elsewhere. For example, when you are driv­ ing оп а highway lost in thought, visual stimuli of the road, other cars, оЬ· jects, and so on, are mostly in peripheral awareness; so are voices that you can hear but are not attending to, as in the cocktail party situation. (2) Events that have been in focal awareness very recently-within the last few sec• onds-so they are still in short-term memory and can Ье rapidly retrieved to focal awareness. Nonconscious Mind Noru:onscious mind consists of knowledge and mental processes that are not currently in consciousness. That is, we are not subjectively aware of them at the moment-they are not "currently present". 11 In Mandler's (1984) terms, nonconscious contents are not currently being processed in the con­ scious mode, though they may Ье processed in various nonconscious modes. While we are awake our nonconscious mind is intensely active, doing prelim­ inary processing of sensory inputs, retrieving information from memory, and carrying out automatic actions. Conscious mind is like the tip of the ice­ berg; most of our mental activity goes on nonconsciously. Yet nonconscious mind is not like an alternate, hidden consciousness, carrying out the same sort of mental activities that you do consciously. Nonconscious mental pro­ cesses, to а large degree, serve different ft.inctions than do conscious ones. Leve/s of nonconscious mind. Nonconscious contents and processes may Ье arranged on а continuum, according to how easily retrievaЫe they are into primary consciousness and, ultimately, into reflective conscious­ ness. Though nonconsciousness is really а continuum, it is convenient to think in terms of levels to which we can attach labels or brief descriptions. The levels range from contents that can Ье quickly and easily retrieved (such as many long-term memories and recently registered but unnoticed sensory perceptions), through those that can Ье made availaЫe with some effort (such as memories hard to retrieve and motives that become apparent through careful self-analysis), to those that cannot reach consciousness with any amount of time or effort but can Ье known only through inference (such as highly practiced automatic mental processes or procedures, and lower­ level "subroutines"). There is а continuous interaction between adjacent levels of conscious and nonconscious mind. It is not the case that one's mental activity as а whole shifts between different levels of consciousness. Rather, mental activ­ ity is going оп at .all levels simultaneously-or in oscillation, in the case of primary and reflective consciousness. Though information may "move" be­ tween different levels of consciousness-nonconsciousness, it does not stay the same as it moves. Rather it is transformed Ьу different mental processes at different levels. Types of nonconscious contents and processes. Most nonconscious mental contents and processes fall into one of four major categories: (1) Sensory inputs registered Ьиt not attended. The capacity of consciousness (or working memory) is limited. Selective attention processes select for con­ sciousness the information that is most pertinent from the vast array of sen­ sory inputs. Prior to selection these inputs are recognized nonconsciously, in the sense that they are matched to corresponding items, such as words, ob­ jects, and concepts, in long-term memory (Norman 1968). Nonconscious rec­ ognition of the meaning of а stimulus may Ье critically important in deter• mining whether it is selected for consciousness. For example, you may Ье аЫе to read while ignoring the voices of people who are talking nearby. But if one of them says your name you will рrоЬаЫу notice it. PresumaЫy а]] of the words were recognized nonconsciously, but only your name was impor• tant enough to your interests to Ье selected for consciousness. Non· consciously registered events sometimes reach consciousness, and some· times they don't. Sometimes nonconsciously recognized events influence our thinking and behavior even thougb they never reach consciousness (for example, suЫiminal [nonconscious] perception). (See Chapter 6 of this book andDixon 1981.) (2) Declarative krwwledge in long-term memory (LTM). Declarative (proposi• tional) knowledge is of two types: (а) semantic knowledge (said to Ье in semantic memory), including the meanings of words, names of things, and misce11a• neous impersonal facts and theories (including most of what you learn in college); and (Ь) episodic knowfedge (in episodic memory), which consists of your memories of personal experiences in your life (Tulving 1983, 1985а). For example, remembering the facts and concepts that you learned in а course last semester would involve retrieval from semantic memory. But remember• ing your personal experiences in the course-such as how you reacted when the professor stood on the tаЫе to make а point-would involve retrieval from episodic memory. At any moment, almost all of the thousands of things you know in se• mantic and episodic memory are nonconscious. You can easily retrieve much-perhaps most-of that information into consciousness (or working memory), given the right retrieval cues. But sometimes retrieval from LТМ is difficult, and sometimes it temporarily fails. For example, you have рrоЬаЫу had the experience of wanting to introduce two new friends to each other and not being аЫе to recall one of their names. In such cases you may ехре· rience а "tip•of-the·tongue" effect, in which you know that you know the name, but you just can't retrieve it at the moment. The tip·of•the-tongue ef• fect demonstrates the difference between not knowing something and know· ing it but not being аЫе to retrieve it from memory. In the case of re-pressed memories, people may Ье unaЫe to remember the details of persona11y trau• matic experiences, such as being the victim of а violent crime. According to Freudian theory, repressed memories are actively prevented from reaching consciousness, though they may influence our emotions and behavior even while they remain nonconscious. In recent years psychologists have studied implicit memory, in which Ье· havior is influenced Ьу nonconscious knowledge-knowledge that is not, or cannot Ье, retrieved into consciousness. For example, socialjud gment pro• cesses-such as ourjudgments of people's friendliness, competence, and so forth-may Ье influenced Ьу prior knowledge of which we are not currently aware. (See Chapter 7 in this book and Newman & Uleman 1989.) Also, рео· ple suffering from amnesia due to brain damage may Ье аЫе to learn certain skills through practice, though they cannot remember the experience of practicing. Thus, there is а failure of recall from episodic memory, even though procedural memory (memory for skills) remains intact. (See Chapter 6 in this book; Schacter 1987; Tulving 1985а.) (3) Automatic cognitive and sensory·motor programs. The knowledge of how to perform various cognitive and sensory-motor skills is called procedural knowledge, and it is stored in procedural memory (Anderson 1983). The skill­ control programs of procedural memory operate automatically and non• consciously. Such automatic processes are at the Jowest Jevel of noncon­ scious mind in that we cannot Ье directly ; ·•.re of the processes themselves, though we may Ье aware of their final resu)•., or outputs (and often of results at intermediate stages, too). For example, when you read you аге consciously aware of the identity of familiar words. But you are not aware of the stages of the recognition process itself, wherein printed words are analyzed and com­ pared against various patterns stored in long-term memory until а match is found. The pattern recognition process operates rapidly and automatically, and you are aware only of its results. Nonconscious processes that produce а conscious result are sometimes called preattentive processes. We know about preattentive processes only through inference, not through introspection (Кihlstrom 1987). Besides cognitive skills (such as recognition of printed or aural words), sensory-motor skills сап also operate largely outside of awareness. For exam­ ple, when а skilled typist copies а sentence, each word is а stimulus that e!ic­ its а rapid sequence of directed finger movements. The sequence of finger movements is controlled Ьу an automatic process, which has been estab­ !ished through extensive practice. In fact, if the typist tries to type with con­ scious awareness of each finger movement, typing will Ье severely slowed. Athletic skills are another example: extensive practice-such as shooting baskets in basketball-makes execution of the movements largely automatic. What types of cognitive or sensory-motor programs can operate auto· matically? Tasks сап Ье carried out automatically when there is а consistent relationship between input stimuli and output responses-in other words, when the response is haЬitual in that situation (Schneider, Dumais, & Shiffrin 1984). Automatic processes must Ье developed through extensive practice. In the early stages of practice you have to Ье consciously aware of almost everything that you do, for example, in learning typing or athletic skills. With practice, some parts of the skill become automatic. Most skills involve an interaction of controlled (conscious) and automatic (noncon· scious) processing. Controlled processing sets the goals and plots the strate· gies or sequences of actions, and automatic processes execute the actions. Then, depending on the rate of information input, you may Ье аЬ!е to alter­ nate attention between the task and other thoughts (daydreams). For exam• р!е, while driving а car, you consciously choose your destination and the route, but you can drive largely on "autopilot" while you are lost in day· dreams-provided that you are an experienced driver and the driving condi­ tions are easy. Periodically you switch attention between driving and daydreaming. Automatic processes may Ье triggered Ьу an external stimulus. For ех• ample, when someone speaks, your speech recognition process automati­ cally recognizes the words. Or while driving along а highway you may auto• matically turn off at а particular exit, if you have driven that route to work many times. Then the next time you drive that highway, intending to go be­ yond the familiar exit to а different destination, you тау automatically-but unintentionally-turn at that exit if you are daydreaming and driving оп au- topilot. In order to get past the familiar exit you have to attend to driving and override the autopilot. (4) Nonconscious 11Wtives. Freud"s psychoanalytic theory was built around the idea that our conscious thoughts and behavior are influenced Ьу uncon· scious motives or desires, particularly sexual and aggressive desires. Accord­ ing to Freud, awareness may Ье prevented through ап unconsciously con­ trolled repression process; or we may deliberately suppress unwanted thoughts, perhaps Ьу turning attention elsewhere (Wegner l 989). The con­ ceptual status of this category-nonconscious motives-is somewhat prob­ lematic. What is а motive? One could define ''motive" as а need, interest, or desire that activates an organism and directs its behavior toward а specific goal. Ordinarily, when we consciously seek а particular goal, we have а con• scious]y felt need, interest, or desire. If а consciously felt need, interest, or desire were of the essence of motivation, then it would not Ье appropriate to speak of nonconscious motives. But it can Ье argued that consciously felt needs and so forth are not of the essence of motivation. Rather, the essence of motivation is whatever processes-conscious or nonconscious-activate the organism and direct its behavior toward particular goals. Thus, insofar as people are unaware of the causes or processes that control their goal• directed behaviors, we сап say that they are influenced Ьу nonconscious mo· tives. We-or they-may Ье аЫе to infer their motives from their behavior, even if they cannot introspectively report them. In later chapters I will discuss some of the research that supports the claim that much of our mental processing occurs nonconsciously. Chapter 6 will cover nonconscious processing in brain-injured patients (such as the "Ыindsight" and amnesia syndromes) and nonconscious (suЬ!iminal) per­ ception in normal people. In Chapter 7 I will explore the question of whether people ordinarily have introspective awareness of the causes of their own behavior. Subconscious knowledge. Ernest Hilgard, in his book Divided Con­ sciousness: Multiplii Contтols in Human 17w,ight and Action (1977), called atten­ tion to several puzzling psychological phenomena that have а family resem­ Ьlance to each other, including multiple personality, fugue states, hypnotic analgesia, posthypnotic amnesia, and others. In all of these cases people have perceptual experiences or perform actions of а type that would nor­ mally occur with conscious awareness, but they are unaware ofthe events at the time that they occur andlor they cannot subsequently recall the events, which are of а type that ordinarily could Ье recalled. Кihlstrom (1984) uses the term su.Ьconscious to refer to the knowledge or perceptions that are un­ availaЫe to people in these situations. Subconscious k.nowledge can Ье dis• tinguished from ordinary unperceived or unattended events because sub­ conscious kno¾'ledge may later, under special circumstances, Ье retrieved to consciousness. For example, individuals with the multiplii peтscmality syndrome some­ times spontaneously (nonvoluntarily) shift from their ordinary personality to an alternate personality. (ln some cases there аге several alternate person­ alities.) The alternate personality is distinctly different from the normal per­ sonality in some ways: it may, for example, have different interests and val· ues, and Ье more socially extraverted than the normal personality. The alternate personality may do things that the ordinary personality wou\d never do, such as go on а shopping spree or flirt with strangers. Hours or days \ater, when these individuals shift back to the ordinary personality, they will have no reco\lection of what they did during the time in the alternate personality. They will Ье amnesic for that period oftime-though when they later shift back to the alternate personality, they will recall what they (the alternate personality) did earlier. Аfugue state is а kind oI iunctional amnesia (not involvingbrain damage), in which individua1�. perhaps as а reaction to stress, are unaЫe to recall their personal past (the . jobs, their families, and so оп), and wander away from home and start over somewhere else. Later­ perhaps years later-they may again recall their earlier life, perhaps after being tracked down Ьу their families andlor aided Ьу psychotherapy. Elaborating on ideas presented earlier Ьу the French psychiatrist Pierrejanet (1889), Hilgard interpreted these phenomena in terms of а disso­ ciation hypothesis, which says that there is а disconnection between certain mental subsystems-monitoring, action-control, and memory systems-that normally communicate with each other. Не argued that hypnosis can pro­ duce temporary, reversiЫe dissociarions. For example, Hilgard's research suggested that during hypnotic analgesia (pain reduction) а sort of divided consciousness effecr may occur, in which а "hidden observer" may Ье aware of pain of which the hypnotized self is not aware. Hypnosis apparently can also facilitate "automatic writing," in which subjects can write answers to questions without being aware of doing so. In Chapter 15 (Hypnosis II) I will go into some detail on Hilgard's re­ search on dissociation in hypnosis. Wewill see that-as least as far as hypno­ sis is concerned-the idea of dissociatirin processes and subconscious knowl• edge is controversial. Some theorists argtie that "subconscious" knowledge is held out of awareness Ьу diversion of attention, rather than Ьу some special process such as dissociation (Spanos l 986a). But for now the main question is how subconscious knowledge fits into the levels of consciousness model. Insofar as subconscious knowledge can, with difficulty, sometimes Ье retrieved into consciousness and reported, it seems that it is а variety of non­ conscious knowledge. Subconscious knowledge is like many episodic long­ teгm memories: it is hard, though not impossihle, to retrieve. Bear in mind that the levels-of-consciousness mode\ is descriptive, not explanatory, and it does not assume that contents at the same level of availabllity are at the same level for the same reasons. Thus, we can fit subconscious knowledge into the levels model as another type of nonconscious knowledge, and defer until later the question of whether any special processes are involved in situa­ tions-such as hypnotic analgesia-that produce subconscious knowledge. Comparison to Freud's Levels ol Consciousness Sigmund Freud (1900/1965), distinguished berween consciousness, the preconscious, and the unconscious. In his wтiting'Freud used "conscious­ ness" in the sense of awareness, as I do, though he defined consciousness as "а sense organ for the apprehension ofpsychical qualities" (р. 613), а meta­ phor that I find to Ье misleading. Freud's "unconscious" consists of re- pressed memories, desires, and motives that cannot Ье brought into con­ scious awareness, and thus cannot Ье the object of introspective verbal re· ports. Freud's "preconscious" consists of perceptual events and memories that are not currentl у in conscious awareness but which can easily Ье brought into awareness and reported. Thus, in comparison to ту Jeve!s model (Figure 1.1.), Freud's preconscious includes both peripheral aware· ness and aJl of the nonconscious contents of long•term memory that can Ье retrieved into consciousness. Thus, my concept of nonconscious mind-all of those contents and processes that are not currently in consciousness-is broader than Freud's concept of unconscious mind. Nonconscious mind in• cludes Freud's unconscious and most of his preconscious knowledge. In ad­ dition, it includes procedural knowledge. Кihlstrom (1987) said that proce­ dural knowledge is "unconscious in the strict sense of that term" in that we cannot retrieve it to consciousness (р. 1450). Freud's concepts of precon• scious and unconscious have not been used much in cognitive psychology, since it seems more useful to talk about different memory structures and dif­ ferent degrees of memory retrievability (Кihlstrom 1984). SUMMARY 1 define mind as the functioning of the brain to process information and con­ trol action in а flexiЫe and adaptive manner. As а working definition, con­ sciousness is the subjective state ofbeing currently aware of something, either within oneself or outside of oneself. Consciousness is always about some­ thing: it has contents (percepts, thoughts, feelings). Nonconscious mind con­ sists of various mental processes and contents of which we are not currently aware, though many of them, such as long*term memories, can Ье retrieved into awareness. The concept of consciousness as awareness is contrasted with two other common uses of the term: consciousness as wakefulness, and consciousness as an executive control system. It is suggested that consciousness can Ье iden­ tified with or related to some basic concepts iil cognitive psychology, includ­ ing working memory (short-term memory), limited attentional capacity, and controlled processing. А descriptive levels-of-consciousness model (Figure 1.1) gives some order to the distinctions between conscious and nonconscious mind and the different levels within them. The different levels of consciousness have to do with different degrees ofavailability or retrievability of contents from those levels to reflective consciousness and introspective reporting. At the conscious level, we can distinguish between primary conscious­ ness and reflective consciousness. Primary consciousness is the direct experi­ ence of percepts and feelings, and thoughts and memories arising in direct response to them. It also includes spontaneously arising memories, thoughts, and images, including dreams and daydreams. Rejlective consciousness consists of thoughts about one's own conscious experiences per se. In primary con­ sciousness you are the subject who does the thinking, feeling, and acting, mainly in regard to externa1 objects and events. But in reflective conscious• ness your own conscious experiences-percepts, thoughts, feelings, and ас- tions-are the objects о[ your thoughts. Focal awareness (foca] attention) can shift rapid]y between different contents in primary consciousness or be­ tween primary and reflective consciousness. Peripheral awareness includes contents on the fringe of foca] awareness, that can Ье brought into focal awareness almost instantaneously. Levels of nonconscious contents and processes can Ье distinguished in terms of their retrievability to consciousness. Four major types of noncon­ scious contents and processes are described: (!) sensory inputs registered but not attended; (2) declarative knowledge in long-term memory; (3) automatic cognitive and sensory-motor programs (procedural know!edge); and (4) non­ conscious motives. Also classified as а type of nonconscious knowledge is subconscious (dissociated) knowledge, where-in cases such as multiple per­ sonality or hypnotic analgesia-subjects cannot perceive or recall certain events, though they·are of а type that ordinarily could Ье perceived or re­ called. ENDNOTES 1 It is а common convention of speech to say that "mind (or consciousness) is produced Ьу the brain." However, such а statement does not mean that mind is separate from the brain, as а factory product is separate from the machine that produced it. The idea that mind and brain are separaЫe is due at least partly to the fact that we use psychol6gica1 terminology when ta1king about the mind and neurological terminology when talking about the brain. 2 Some brain processes sense and respond to blological information, such as the homeostatic processes that maintain optimum levels of glucose, oxygen, and body temperature. These pro· cesses are not considered to Ье mental processes, since they are concerned only with body main­ tenance and operate automatically and internally. Mental processes uses symbolic representa­ tions of external objects and events, whereas blological information processing is nonsymbolic-it deals directlywith chemicals, temperature, and so on. However, sometimes the distinction between mental processes and Ыologica! information processing is fuzzy, especially when conscious experience or action are directly affected Ьу Ьiological responses. For example, when we feel hunger due to stomach pangs or emotional exciterri.ent ac!=ompanied Ьу а pound­ ing heart, we make decisions and undertake actions instigated Ьу our blological responses. 3I use the term mind system to emphasize the idea that mind is а constellation of specialized mental processes. Consciousness may Ье related to one or more of the mental processes, but not necessarily to all of them. 4As an interesting contrast toJaynes (1986), Belenkey et al. (1986) made thi � observation in а study involving extensive interviews with women of various soC:ioeconomic levels: "We found that women repeatedly used the metaphor ofvoice to depict their intellectual and ethical devel• opment; and that the development of а sense of voice, mind, and self were intricately inter· twined. [Гhis] is at odds with the visual metaphors (such as equating knowledge with illumina­ tion, knowing with seeing, and truth with light) that scientists and philosophers most often use to express their sense of mind" (р. 18). 5 А recent dictionary of psychological terms characterized consciousness as follows: "Con­ sciousness: The having of perceptions, thoughts and feelings; awareness. The term is impossiЫe to define except in terms that are unintelligiЫe without а grasp of what consciousness means" (Sutherland 1989, р. 90). Natsoulas (1978, 1983) discussed six different definitions of conscious­ ness, taking the definitions in the OxfordEnglishDictWnary a.s his starting point. 6rn their �echnicaljargon, philosophers use the term intentionality to refer to the directional­ ity or "aboutness" of consciousness. Conscious states (or intentional states), such as perceptions, beliefs, and desires, are said to роiщ to or Ье about sometblng other than themselves; they have contents. For example, а state of desire is а desire for some paпicular object or activity. Likewise, to say that mental processes use representations of objects, events, and so forth is to say that mental processes have intentiona!ity. I find the term "intentionality" to Ье confusing, so I wili often avoid it in favor of terms like "content" or "aboutness." (See Natsoulas [1981] for а discussion of intentiona1ity from а philosopher-psychoJogist'sviewpoint.) 71 am using the word "knowledge" in the broadest sense as anything that might Ье expressed in а propositional statement, however vaguely-for example, 'Jeff is tall." "! am hungry." "Му skin feels 'pringly'." "1 feel Jike I am inside of а Ыасk sponge." "I imagine myselfflying." "I am floating in а green void." "The president's term of office is five years." А propositional state• ment need not Ье true to qualify as knowledge in this sense. The point is that any knowledge­ conscious or nonconscious-can, in principle, Ье expressed in а propositionaJ statement, or а set of such statements, if we can find the right words. (I am assuming that mental images can, in prjnciple, Ье translated into sets ofpropositionaJ statements.) 8Several terms are used virtually interchangeaЫy Ьу various wriiers who, 1 believe, would Ье sympathetic with my working definition of consciousness. А detailed ana!ysis shows slightly dif­ ferent shades ofmeaningor emphasis. These terms include"subjective experience" and "subjec­ tive awareness,", which emphasize the subjective aspect (accessiЫe only to the person having the experience). "Conscious awareness" sounds redundant, but it emphasizes conscious as opposed to nonconscious knowledge. "Phenomenal experience" (Marcel 1988) or "phenomenal aware­ ness" (Schacter 1989) emphasizes the "raw feels" or "qua!ia" of sensory experience, but also includes conscious thoughts and memory images. "Experience': in these contexts (conscious ex­ perience, subjective experience, phenomenal experience) refers to any contents or events-per• cepts, thoughts, images, feelings-occurring in consciousness. Thus, for example, conscious ex­ perience includes things that you imagine or dream, as well as things that you do physically with yourbody. 9Some writers use the term "riflexive consciousness" for what I and others call "rejlective con• sciousness.'' "Reflexive" is а particular!y inappropriate word here, because it carries the conno• tation that the consciousness it describes is some sort of simple, automatic reaction (analogous to an eyeЫink or kneejerk reflex), whereas in fact we are talking about а complex, high leveJ thought process. "Reflection" may Ье amisleading metaphor too, since it suggests thatconscious contents are directly copied in reflective consciousness, whereas in fact they are selectively re• caJled and reconstructed. I use "reflective" consciousness because it is the more widely used term for this idea, and because its incorrect connotations seem less harmful than those of"re· flexive" consciousness. 10May's ''dialectical relationship" is an interactive play of thoughts that сап mutually change each other. 11Regarding"nonconscious" versus "unconscious": "Nonconscious" is coming to Ье the pre­ ferred term to refer to the broad category of menta! contents and processes that are currtntly outside of awareness (e.g., Кihlstrom 1987; Marcel 1988). Some writers use the term "uncon­ scious" with the same meaning. The advantage of "nonconscious" is that it avoids confusion with botb (а) unconscious in the sense of coma or sleep, and (Ь) Freud's concept ofthe uncon• scious as repressed desires and memories that сап net.Jer Ье retrieved into consciousness. I wШ use ''nonconscious" as I defined it, though I will sometimes cite or quote writers who use "un· conscious" with the same meaning. I'Il make it clear ifI mean unconscious in some other sense, such as the Freudian U nconscious.