Structure in the stream of consciousness: Evidence from a verbalized thought protocol and automated text analytic methods.
Chandra S Sripada, Aman Taxali
Consciousness and Cognition October 1, 2020 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.103007 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Empirical study using verbalized thought protocol Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Mind wandering Natural language processing Spontaneous thought Stream of consciousness Text analytics Thinking |
| Key points | The spontaneous stream of thought exhibits a clump-and-jump structure, with clusters of related thoughts followed by jumps to new topics, and jumps involve a discontinuous shift. |
Abstract
A key question about the spontaneous stream of thought (SST), often called the stream of consciousness, concerns its serial structure: How are thoughts in an extended sequence related to each other? In this study, we used a verbalized thought protocol to investigate "clump-and-jump" structure in SST-clusters of related thoughts about a topic followed by a jump to a new topic, in a repeating pattern. Several lines of evidence convergently supported the presence of clump-and-jump structure: high interrater agreement in identifying jumps, corroboration of rater-assigned jumps by automated text analytic methods, identification of clumps and jumps by a data-driven algorithm, and the inferred presence of clumps and jumps in unverbalized SST. We also found evidence that jumps involve a discontinuous shift in which a new clump is only modestly related to the previous one. These results illuminate serial structure in SST and invite research into the processes that generate the clump-and-jump pattern.