Aspects of the unity of consciousness and everyday memory failures.

Everyday memory failures, such as forgetting to put on a tie for a formal meeting, can be understood through the concept of the "unity of consciousness." The authors argue that perfect unity among mental states is rare and that minor breakdowns in this unity cause common memory lapses. After reviewing philosophical ideas about unity of consciousness and functionalism, they propose a "unity model" of memory failure, which explains how disruptions lead to inappropriate behavior. They distinguish these failures from slips of action and other cognitive failures, and contend that their model is preferable to alternatives like Absentmindedness or Multimodal models and is consistent with experimental results.

Study at a glance

Abstract

We argue that analyzing everyday memory failures in terms of the "unity of consciousness" can elucidate the bases of such failures. A perfect unity amongst one's mental states is rare. In extreme cases the unity of consciousness can breakdown in dramatic fashion (e.g., in Dissociative Identity Disorder), but such breakdowns also occur in less dramatic ways that affect us in everyday life. For example, disruptions in the unity of consciousness can result in everyday memory failures, such as forgetting to put on a tie for an important formal meeting. After providing some philosophical background into the notions of "unity of consciousness" and "functionalism," we offer preliminary analyses of three examples of everyday memory failure. We then introduce and develop what we call the "unity model" of memory failure and show how it explains the examples. We also describe different ways that unity can break down which, in turn, can lead to memory failure and inappropriate behavior. We then show how slips of action and other kinds of cognitive failures (e.g., memory blocks) differ from everyday memory failures. Finally, we examine alternative models (e.g., Absentmindedness and Multimodal) arguing that the unity model is preferable, and then show how our model is consistent with some experimental results.