Conscious and unconscious

Abstract

Is the age-old distinction between the ‘conscious mind’ and ‘the unconscious’ valid, or do powerful, but false, intuitions mislead us? Unconscious, implicit, or subliminal perception is reviewed, from early ideas of a ‘subliminal self’ to modern debates over subliminal perception, including signal detection theory, priming, and the differences between objective/subjective and direct/indirect measures. Emotional and social effects are explored along with their brain basis. The core question is: does consciousness have causal efficacy? Causal theories include varieties of dualism, global workspace theory, and neuronal GWT. Non-causal theories include eliminative materialism, epiphenomenalism, ‘higher-order thought’ theories, and some forms of functionalism. One key observation is that actions can happen too fast for conscious visual perception to be involved. Research on visual guidance, fast motor control, the effects of brain damage, and the strange phenomenon of blindsight, suggests that fast actions are controlled by the visual dorsal stream, and the perception of objects and events by the slower ventral stream. The chapter ends by exploring the role of consciousness in intuition and creativity. The research reviewed challenges the common assumptions that perceptions must be either ‘in’ or ‘out’ of consciousness, and that actions must be performed either consciously or unconsciously.