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I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior

Organisms are adapted to each other and the environment because there is an inbuilt striving toward security, stability, and equilibrium. A General Theory of Behavior connects imagery, affect, and action with the central executive system we call consciousness, a direct emergent property of cerebral...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Marks, David F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6562971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31083483
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci9050107
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author Marks, David F.
author_facet Marks, David F.
author_sort Marks, David F.
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description Organisms are adapted to each other and the environment because there is an inbuilt striving toward security, stability, and equilibrium. A General Theory of Behavior connects imagery, affect, and action with the central executive system we call consciousness, a direct emergent property of cerebral activity. The General Theory is founded on the assumption that the primary motivation of all of consciousness and intentional behavior is psychological homeostasis. Psychological homeostasis is as important to the organization of mind and behavior as physiological homeostasis is to the organization of bodily systems. Consciousness processes quasi-perceptual images independently of the input to the retina and sensorium. Consciousness is the “I am” control center for integration and regulation of (my) thoughts, (my) feelings, and (my) actions with (my) conscious mental imagery as foundation stones. The fundamental, universal conscious desire for psychological homeostasis benefits from the degree of vividness of inner imagery. Imagery vividness, a combination of clarity and liveliness, is beneficial to imagining, remembering, thinking, predicting, planning, and acting. Assessment of vividness using introspective report is validated by objective means such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A significant body of work shows that vividness of visual imagery is determined by the similarity of neural responses in imagery to those occurring in perception of actual objects and performance of activities. I am conscious; therefore, I am.
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spelling pubmed-65629712019-06-17 I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior Marks, David F. Brain Sci Review Organisms are adapted to each other and the environment because there is an inbuilt striving toward security, stability, and equilibrium. A General Theory of Behavior connects imagery, affect, and action with the central executive system we call consciousness, a direct emergent property of cerebral activity. The General Theory is founded on the assumption that the primary motivation of all of consciousness and intentional behavior is psychological homeostasis. Psychological homeostasis is as important to the organization of mind and behavior as physiological homeostasis is to the organization of bodily systems. Consciousness processes quasi-perceptual images independently of the input to the retina and sensorium. Consciousness is the “I am” control center for integration and regulation of (my) thoughts, (my) feelings, and (my) actions with (my) conscious mental imagery as foundation stones. The fundamental, universal conscious desire for psychological homeostasis benefits from the degree of vividness of inner imagery. Imagery vividness, a combination of clarity and liveliness, is beneficial to imagining, remembering, thinking, predicting, planning, and acting. Assessment of vividness using introspective report is validated by objective means such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A significant body of work shows that vividness of visual imagery is determined by the similarity of neural responses in imagery to those occurring in perception of actual objects and performance of activities. I am conscious; therefore, I am. MDPI 2019-05-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6562971/ /pubmed/31083483 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci9050107 Text en © 2019 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Marks, David F.
I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior
title I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior
title_full I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior
title_fullStr I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior
title_full_unstemmed I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior
title_short I Am Conscious, Therefore, I Am: Imagery, Affect, Action, and a General Theory of Behavior
title_sort i am conscious, therefore, i am: imagery, affect, action, and a general theory of behavior
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6562971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31083483
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci9050107
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