Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)
April 17, 2024
Alejandro Heredia Cedillo, Dennis Lambert, Ezequiel Morsella
Identifying consciousness in other creatures, be they animals or exotic creatures that have yet to be discovered, remains a great scientific challenge. We delineate the first three steps that we think are necessary for identifying consciousness in other creatures. Step 1 is to define the particular kind of consciousness in which one is interested. Step 2 is to identify, in humans, the key...
Consciousness and Cognition
May 1, 2015
Christina Merrick, Melika Farnia, Tiffany K Jantz et al.
The stream of consciousness often appears whimsical and free from external control. Recent advances, however, reveal that the stream is more susceptible to external influence than previously assumed. Thoughts can be triggered by external stimuli in a manner that is involuntary, systematic, and nontrivial. Based on these advances, our experimental manipulation systematically triggered a sequence...
Frontiers in Psychology
2014
Christina Merrick, Christine A. Godwin, Mark W. Geisler et al.
108 citations
How consciousness is generated by the nervous system remains one of the greatest mysteries in science. Investigators from diverse fields have begun to unravel this puzzle by contrasting conscious and unconscious processes. In this way, it has been revealed that the two kinds of processes differ in terms of the underlying neural events and associated cognitive mechanisms. We propose that, for...
Psychological Reports
October 1, 2003
Ezequiel Morsella
The function of phenomenal states remains a mystery, primarily because of the prevalent, a priori view that these states serve no functional role. This note is a call to arms against this uncorroborated and counterproductive view, which continues to stifle research on the topic. It is proposed that, given what we know and can accomplish with the tools at hand, discovering the function of...