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Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations

The conscious field includes not only representations about external stimuli (e.g., percepts), but also conscious contents associated with internal states, such as action-related intentions (e.g., urges). Although understudied, the latter may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness....

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Autores principales: Cho, Hyein, Godwin, Christine A., Geisler, Mark W., Morsella, Ezequiel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4269111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25566126
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01445
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author Cho, Hyein
Godwin, Christine A.
Geisler, Mark W.
Morsella, Ezequiel
author_facet Cho, Hyein
Godwin, Christine A.
Geisler, Mark W.
Morsella, Ezequiel
author_sort Cho, Hyein
collection PubMed
description The conscious field includes not only representations about external stimuli (e.g., percepts), but also conscious contents associated with internal states, such as action-related intentions (e.g., urges). Although understudied, the latter may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness. To illuminate these phenomena, in a new experimental paradigm [Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT)], participants were instructed to not subvocalize the names of visually-presented objects. Each object was presented for 10 s on a screen. Participants indicated whenever they involuntarily subvocalized the object name. Research has revealed that it is difficult to suppress such subvocalizations, which occur on over 80% of the trials. Can the effect survive if one intentionally generates a competing (internally-generated) conscious content? If so, this would suggest that intentional and unintentional contents can co-exist simultaneously in consciousness in interesting ways. To investigate this possibility, in one condition, participants were instructed to reiteratively subvocalize a speech sound (“da, da, da”) throughout the trial. This internally generated content is self-generated and intentional. Involuntary subvocalizations of object names still arose on over 80% of the trials. One could hypothesize that subvocalizations occurred because of the pauses between the intended speech sounds, but this is inconsistent with the observation that comparable results arose even when participants subvocalized a continuous, unbroken hum (“daaa….”) throughout the trial. Regarding inter-content interactions, the continuous hum and object name seem to co-exist simultaneously in consciousness. This intriguing datum requires further investigation. We discuss the implications of this new paradigm for the study of internally-generated conscious contents.
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spelling pubmed-42691112015-01-06 Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations Cho, Hyein Godwin, Christine A. Geisler, Mark W. Morsella, Ezequiel Front Psychol Psychology The conscious field includes not only representations about external stimuli (e.g., percepts), but also conscious contents associated with internal states, such as action-related intentions (e.g., urges). Although understudied, the latter may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness. To illuminate these phenomena, in a new experimental paradigm [Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT)], participants were instructed to not subvocalize the names of visually-presented objects. Each object was presented for 10 s on a screen. Participants indicated whenever they involuntarily subvocalized the object name. Research has revealed that it is difficult to suppress such subvocalizations, which occur on over 80% of the trials. Can the effect survive if one intentionally generates a competing (internally-generated) conscious content? If so, this would suggest that intentional and unintentional contents can co-exist simultaneously in consciousness in interesting ways. To investigate this possibility, in one condition, participants were instructed to reiteratively subvocalize a speech sound (“da, da, da”) throughout the trial. This internally generated content is self-generated and intentional. Involuntary subvocalizations of object names still arose on over 80% of the trials. One could hypothesize that subvocalizations occurred because of the pauses between the intended speech sounds, but this is inconsistent with the observation that comparable results arose even when participants subvocalized a continuous, unbroken hum (“daaa….”) throughout the trial. Regarding inter-content interactions, the continuous hum and object name seem to co-exist simultaneously in consciousness. This intriguing datum requires further investigation. We discuss the implications of this new paradigm for the study of internally-generated conscious contents. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4269111/ /pubmed/25566126 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01445 Text en Copyright © 2014 Cho, Godwin, Geisler and Morsella. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Cho, Hyein
Godwin, Christine A.
Geisler, Mark W.
Morsella, Ezequiel
Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
title Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
title_full Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
title_fullStr Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
title_full_unstemmed Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
title_short Internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
title_sort internally generated conscious contents: interactions between sustained mental imagery and involuntary subvocalizations
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4269111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25566126
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01445
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