Splitting consciousness: Unconscious, conscious, and metaconscious processes in social cognition
نویسندگان
چکیده
This paper explores the interplay between unconscious, conscious, and metaconscious processes in social cognition. We distinguish among mental states that are (i) genuinely unaware, (ii) aware, but lack meta-awareness, and (iii) meta-aware—internally articulated as states of the perceiver. We review key studies from our own and related research programmes to highlight this theoretical framework, and to illustrate access, translational, and temporary dissociations between levels of awareness. The discussed phenomena include unconscious affect, mind-wandering, verbal overshadowing, theory-based biases in reporting of experiences, and many others. We also show how our framework can offer new perspectives on some classic social psychology findings and inspire discovery of new findings. However, we also highlight challenges inherent in establishing whether a phenomenon is genuinely unconscious or experientially conscious but lacking in meta-awareness.
منابع مشابه
Minding the Mind: the Value of distinguishing aMong unconscious, conscious, and Metaconscious Processes
As you read this chapter, various unconscious, conscious, and even metaconscious processes will interact to derive conceptual meaning from patterns of light striking your retinas. Much of this occurs below the threshold of awareness because the shapes of letters and words are processed through hierarchical levels of unconscious visual processing until they are identified as perceptual represent...
متن کاملConscious and unconscious processes in cognition
Characterizing the relationships between conscious and unconscious processes is one of the most important and long-standing goals of cognitive psychology. Renewed interest in the nature of consciousness — long considered not to be scientifically explorable —, as well as the increasingly widespread availability of functional brain imaging techniques, now offer the possibility of detailed explora...
متن کاملDistinction between weight-based and activation-based processing
rules Associations Conscious knowledge Unconscious knowledge Where is implicit learning? 49 ➊ The role of consciousness: Is cognition without consciousness possible? In what sense? ➋ Knowledge representation: How is abstract knowledge represented? Two central issues Abstract rules Associations Conscious knowledge explicit learning Unconscious knowledgerules Associations Conscious knowledge ...
متن کاملYes It Can: On the Functional Abilities of the Human Unconscious.
Understanding the division of labor between conscious processes and unconscious ones is central to our understanding of the human mind. This article proposes a simple "Yes It Can" (or YIC) principle: It argues that unconscious processes can perform the same fundamental, high-level functions that conscious processes can perform. The author presents considerations of evolutionary pressures and of...
متن کامل