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...

Many studies of unconscious processing involve comparing a performance measure (e.g., some assessment of perception or memory) with an awareness measure (such as a verbal report or a forced-choice response) taken either concurrently or separately. Unconscious processing is inferred when above-chance performance is combined with null awareness. Often, however, aggregate awareness is better than ...

It is a mistake to consider perception and learning separately because what one learns is strongly constrained by what one perceives, and what one perceives depends on what one has experienced. I shall propose the hypothesis that perception is the computation of a representation that enables us to make reliable and versatile inferences about associations occurring in the world around us--that i...

Recently, our team found that category-selective attention could modulate tool processing at the partial awareness level and unconscious face processing in the middle occipital gyrus (MOG). However, the modulation effects in MOG were in opposite directions across the masked tool and masked face conditions in that study: MOG activation decreased in the masked faces condition but increased in the...

This article analyzes the field of science that studies entire spectrum phenomena in psychology possible. Why only today did we start talking about a new psychology, possible? Its novelty lies emphasis on possible as unexpected, incredible, and improbable. In possible, at one pole understanding psychologists is adaptive based past experience, opposite preadaptive phenomenon (understanding event...

Abstract This paper introduces an original concept (projective anthropomorphism) towards exploring a psychological dimension that is irreducible to the forms of anthropomorphism investigated in both cognitive science and social robotics. Projective unconscious bias anticipating humanlike characteristics robots. An overview variety ways which projection has been conceptualised psychology psychoa...