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MENTAL REPRESENTATION AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Autumn Term 2002

Course Handbook

MENTAL REPS AND CONSCIOUSNESS AUTUMN TERM 2023

MENTAL REPRESENTATION AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Course Overview

Official Course Title: Mental Representation and Consciousness.

Official Course Code: C8506

Course Organisers: This course is organised by Dr Zoltan Dienes, a member of the Experimental Psychology subject group in the School of Biological Sciences. You are welcome to direct queries concerning the course to Zoltan during his office hour in EP 5D19 (Thursday 9:00-10:00 am; you can also try me other times and I will probably be in), by phone (x8550) or email ([email protected]). The other lecturers on the course are Sue Sullivan and Lance Slade, who will be available in their office (EP 3D4) on Mondays 9:00-10:30 am (tel. x3918; e-mail: [email protected] and [email protected]).

Type of Course: Mental Representation and Consciousness is an optional third year course that can be taken by students on the Psychology (BSc), Psychology with North American Studies (PSYNAS), Human Sciences (HUMS), and Neuroscience (NS) degrees and students majoring in Developmental Psychology, Psychology (BA), and Social Psychology. It is also available to Visiting and Exchange students from any School.

Syllabus: The entry for Mental Representation and Consciousness in the BSc Syllabus reads as follows:

Theoretical issues in cognitive science about what constitutes representation and the distinction between implicit and explicit representation (knowledge) will be addressed in six domains: Development of mental representation in infants; acquisition of common-sense theories, in particular, a theory of mind and autism considered as a failure to develop a theory of mental representation; the creation of implicit and explicit representations in adults, addressing the issue of subconscious learning; computer simulation of implicit versus explicit knowledge (learning); hypnosis and altered states of consciousness; subliminal perception.

Course Aims:The broad aim of this course is to show how an understanding of the notion of representation is central to understanding the nature of the mind.

Course Objectives:By the end of the course you should expect to gain1) An understanding of possible representational differences between implicit and explicit knowledge and how this relates to consciousness;


2) An understanding of how children’s representational abilities develop and how they come to understand the mind as representational;3) Experience in publicly presenting and debating ideas and research findings.

Summary of Course Content: This course does not cover a standard area of psychology. Rather we try to bring together quite disparate areas under some basic theoretical questions about the nature of mental representation.

So we start by asking what makes some brain processes mental representation. Although "mental representation" can be taken as the defining feature of Cognitive Psychology, ironically cognitive psychology never addressed this basic question but took it for granted. So we have to rely largely on philosophers for insightful discussions on this topic.

We realize that philosophical texts are often hard to stomach for psychologists; apart from an obscure language one often doesn't even know what they are on about. So we try to keep it short and sweet in the beginning, just as a first attempt to sensitise you to the issues before we move into the more psychologically interesting content areas. The hope is that the psychological issues raised in these areas will then make you appreciate the basic philosophical issues.

1. What is a representation? We start the course by considering what actually might make something a representation. This turns out to be more difficult than it might first appear, although most of contemporary psychology assumes that the mind can be best understood as a representational system.

2. Development and Concepts. The next area discussed is how the human mind turns representational: Is it so from the beginning or does representational thought develop during the first 2 years of infancy? We'll get into issues of pretend play, object search, co-ordination of different senses, memory, etc. in infancy.

3. Theory of mind. The question about the representational mind crops up in unexpected ways. In our day to day social intercourse we spend considerable time wondering about what goes on in our fellow humans' mind (and in our own). How do we conceive of the mind? We usually do not bother about that question among adults, but when dealing with young children one does start to wonder. It looks as if children conceive of the mind quite differently than we adults do. They may only gradually, or in developmental steps, acquire our "theory of mind". A particular interesting group of persons to study in this context are people with autism, since they may be specifically impaired in their understanding of the representational mind. That impairment can explain why they have social and communication problems. We will also look at the extent to which certain animals have a theory of mind.

4. Implicit-Explicit Representation. This distinction tries to get at the common core of a variety of dichotomies about differences in knowledge, e.g.: know-how -- know-that volitional -- automatic unconscious -- conscious


These distinctions have lately been appearing all over psychology, e.g., memory research, learning, cognitive development. There are interesting phenomena tied to the distinction that shed some light on what consciousness is.

5. Consciousness: Subliminal Perception and Time. With the conceptual framework developed about mental representation we have a fresh look at some old and puzzling issues, which have largely been banned from scientific psychology--presumably because nobody could relate them in an insightful way to basic assumptions of behaviourism or traditional cognitive psychology. This is particularly surprising in the case of cognitive psychology, because in the olden times conscious thought was the domain of cognitive psychology. Yet, in the current climate of "information processing psychology" it plays a negligible role. Although, the voices are getting louder that this is a deficiency of the prevalent view. We'll touch on subliminal perception (can advertisers really make you crave Coke by imperceptible cues on television?); and then later in the course, on cases where we seem to be conscious of event before they have happened (the answer is not precognition in these cases).

6. Self-Reflection, Hypnosis and Will. Looking at consciousness as the ability to reflect on your mental states is particularly interesting when it comes to reflecting on your own volitions. Normally we do have this reflective awareness and so are at one with our will, but under hypnosis this unity may be broken. Young children may lack that reflection anyway and that's why they can't think rationally about their desires and have to throw tantrums.

Reading List: There is no one book that covers the course, but the main areas would be roughly covered by the two books Berry, D. & Dienes, Z. (1994) Implicit Learning, Erlbaum; and Perner, J. (1991) Understanding the representational mind, MIT Press. More detailed readings are given below for each lecture. Copies of material labelled “essential reading” will be in the Faculty Copy Collection of the main library (part of the Reserve Collection and marked Res. Fac. on the catalogue); copies of material labelled “background reading” held in a part of the Reserve Collection housed in the Biology Library

Teaching: There will be two lectures and one tutorial per week. However, until tutorials start in Week 3 the tutorial slot will be used for additional lectures. Lectures will be given by Zoltan Dienes, Lance Slade, and Sue Sullivan.

You will be assigned to tutorial groups of about five people per group. In each tutorial, there will be two specified activities: First, one person will give a 15 minute presentation (and NO longer) of a paper, followed by discussion. Second, one person will give a five minute summary of the most important points from a lecture that week; each lecture must be covered and covered by a different person. Lecture summaries should be guided by the questions listed below after each lecture. Once a lecture is summarised, people should ask the group about any points they didn’t understand in that lecture.

The groups will be student-led in that the group will consist only of students, for the first 45 minutes anyway. Although this may at first sound strange, we have used this system for the past four years and found it very successful. Its advantage is that it encourages a more active style of learning; lecturer-led tutorials often degenerate into simply another lecture without much actual discussion. In previous years on the Mental Reps course we had run seminars, in which each person gave a 20-30 minute presentation to the rest of the class (30+ people), which included the


lecturers. Based on the feedback at the end of the course, students uniformly found the experience of giving a seminar very useful but also maybe unnecessarily stressful. Feedback also indicated that hearing other people’s seminars was not very useful. With the new system, the stress will be reduced because you will be presenting to a much smaller number of people, and to people roughly equal to you in terms of knowledge. Both these factors encourages more active discussion, and thus make other people’s seminars useful to you as well. You will still have guidance from the lecturers: First, before presenting at a tutorial, you will be required to write-up your presentation and have it marked by a lecturer, who will discuss with you any misunderstandings and ways of making the presentation clearer. Secondly, a lecturer will come in the last 15 minutes of each tutorial, so questions that remain unresolved in tutorials can be resolved with the lecturers, but in all cases an attempt should be made first to resolve questions without the lecturer. Feedback has indicated that on balance this style of student-led tutorial, with the lecturer turning up for only part of the session, worked better than the normal style of tutorial, completely run by a lecturer. You will have ultimate responsibility for making the tutorial system work. The paper you present will be part of the examined material, so you will have responsibility not only to yourself, but also to your colleagues to understand the material and present it so that they can understand it too. You also have a responsibility to them to be there even when you are not presenting, because of the work they have put into preparing their presentation, and so that you can answer questions they may have about the lectures.

Your presentation provides very valuable practice in presenting material to a small group of people - one of the more important ‘transferable skills’ you learn at university. Whatever job you do next, it is likely to involve public presentation. Your presentation should not primarily be a show of knowledge, but a serious effort to get a couple of interesting points across to your audience. Clarity is important. In order to integrate these presentations with the lecture material we have prepared a list of eight papers so that over the course of the term, each group will have covered each paper.

The following Table shows the detailed teaching timetable. Notification of any changes in the organisation of teaching will appear on the Psychology Noticeboard which is situated close to the Experimental Psychology Office.

TEACHING TIMETABLE


WEEK Mon 14:00-14:50PEV1-2A1

Tue 9:15-10:05PEV1-2A1

Tue 14:00-14:50

PEV1-2A1

Thur 12:30-13:20PEV1-2A1

1 Introduction2 Philosophy of Mind and Concept of

Representation (ZD)Development of

Mental Representation

(LS)

Theory of Mind: Normal

Development (LS)

3 Theory of Mind: Autism (SS)

Theory of Mind in Animals (SS)

Tutorials Tutorials

4 Implicit Knowledge and

Explicitation (SS)

Self-Conscious Memory (LS)

Tutorials Tutorials

5 Implicit Memory (ZD)

Implicit Memory (ZD)

Tutorials Tutorials

6 Subliminal Perception (ZD)

Subliminal Perception (ZD)

Tutorials Tutorials

7 Implicit Learning (ZD)

A Theory of Implicit

Knowledge (ZD)

Tutorials Tutorials

8 Hypnosis (ZD) Hypnosis (ZD) Tutorials Tutorials9 Volition (ZD) Time and

Consciousness (ZD)

Tutorials Tutorials

10 Review (if needed)

LR = Lance SladeSS = Sue Sullivan ZD = Zoltan Dienes

Course Requirements and Assessment: You need to write 3 pieces of work:

1 tutorial presentation.1 essay, of no more than 1500 words.


2 short answers, of no more than 500 words each. Short answers should start with a definition of the topic named, followed by a short discussion of the issues the topic raises, perhaps describing an experiment or two.

Taking 2 short answers to be one piece of work, one piece of work must be handed in before each of the following deadlines: End of weeks 4, 7 and 9. Your tutor may refuse to accept late work Your tutor, in addition to commenting on your work, will give you a mark using criteria similar to those employed in the Psychology BSc marking scheme, but the mark does not contribute to your overall assessment on the course. The tutors will be available for advice at particular office hours.

As with other Sussex courses, you are required to attend all lectures and each of your weekly tutorials.

The course is assessed by a 3 hour unseen examination which is taken in the summer term. Question 1 of the exam consists of seven short-answer topics and you must write brief notes on three of them. The topics will be taken from lectures and tutorial papers, not from any of the other readings. So make sure you know your lecture notes and tutorial notes. Questions 2 to 7 of the exam are essay questions, and you should answer two of these six essay questions. Essay questions can in principle be answered from lecture and tutorial material (up to a 2.1 standard), but a first class mark usually requires evidence of having read beyond the lecture and tutorial material. All questions carry equal weight (i.e. the three short answers carry the same weight as one essay). Past papers are available from the Experimental Psychology Office.

Course Monitoring and Student Feedback: The course is monitored using a variety of formal and informal methods. In one of the final sessions, during the 9th week, students are asked to complete a course questionnaire. In addition, lecturer’s on the course encourage questions or feedback, either during or after lectures. The course organiser, Zoltan Dienes, is available during an Office Hour for individual discussion of issues relating to the course.A number of changes in teaching practice have been influenced by student feedback. For example, topics have been removed or added based on student feedback; as previously mentioned, the seminar system was changed because of student feedback.

Readings for Specific Topics.

Week 2

PHILOSOPHY OF REPRESENTATION AND OF CONSCIOUSNESSEssay Questions:1) What is the difference between mental and physical? How are the mental and physical related?2) Why are psychologists interested in "representations"?

Readings:


Essential reading .

On representation:

Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. Chapters 1 and 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A Bradford Book

If you read just one paper on consciousness, read one of:

Churchland, P. M. (1984) Matter and consciousness: A contemporary introduction to the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A Bradford book. Chapter 2.

Tye, M. (1996) Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind. MIT Press: Cambridge. Particularly part 1. This gives a nice introduction to some of the problems of explaining consciousness.

Dennett, D.C. (1991) Consciousness Explained (chs. 1-4). London: Penguin.

Background reading :

On representation:An accessible and brief discussion is in: Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Penguin, Chapter Fourteen.

Millikan, R. G. (1993). White queen psychology and other essays for Alice. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books/MIT-Press. (Chapters one, four and six.) This is heavy going - make sure you have a good grasp of the basics in the lecture before you attempt this.

On consciousness:Baars, B. (1997) In the theater of consciousness (chapters 1 and 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rosenthal, D. M. "Consciousness and higher order thought", Macmillan Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. Available at: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/dr.htm#publications

These Web sites contain on-line many classic papers on consciousness:http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online.htmlhttp://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/dr.htm#cn

DEVELOPMENT

Essay Questions:

Use the criteria for representation to evaluate claims about the development of representational thinking in infancy.

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/cogit/dr.htm

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/cogit/dr.htm

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online.html


Compare Piaget's criteria for mental representation with criteria from philosophy of mind. Which provides a more adequate account?

Readings

Essential reading : If you just read one paper, read:

Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. MIT Press. chapter 3 (pp.43-56 only)

Background reading:Development of Representational Mind.

Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. MIT Press. chapter 3 (p.56 – 68) and chapter 10

Spelke, E. S. (1994). Initial knowledge: Six suggestions. Cognition, 50, 431-445.

Meltzoff, A. N. (1990). Foundations for developing a concept of self. In D. Cicchetti & M. Beeghly (Eds.), The self in transition: Infancy to childhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

THEORY OF MIND IN “NORMAL” DEVELOPMENT

Essay Questions

Why is pretence understood so much earlier than belief? (Is that the right way to put the question?)

What are the early precursors to children's "theory of mind"? Are they precursors, early manifestations of the same thing, or an implicit version of what becomes explicit later on?

Readings

Essential reading : If you just read one paper, read:

Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind (chapter 5). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Background reading:Theory of Mind in Children.

Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind (chapter 3). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Flavell, J. H. (1999). Cognitive development: Children’s knowledge about the mind. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 21-45.


Mitchell, P. (1997). Introduction to theory of mind: Children, autism and apes. London: Arnold

Week 3

TUTORIALS. NO TUTORIAL PAPER TO BE GIVEN IN THIS TUTORIAL. JUST SUMMARIZE AND DISCUSS LECTURES. In each lecture summary, make sure you answer the following questions.

1) Lectures on representation and consciousness:1. What is representation? What are some of its defining criteria? 2. How could mind and body be related?

2) Development of representationAre children capable of representation at birth or is it something that develops?

3) Theory of mind: normal developmentWhat are the changes in representational ability that underlie children's understanding of the mind?

AUTISM

Essay Questions

Evaluate the executive function and theory of mind accounts of autism.

Essential reading . If you just read one paper, read:

Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind (chapter five). Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT.

Background reading:

Leslie, A.M., & Thais, L. (1992). Domain specificity in conceptual development: Neuropsychological evidence from autism. Cognition, 43, 225-251.

Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Cohen, D. (Eds) (1993). Understanding other minds: perspectives from autism. New York: OUP.

Frith, U., & Happe, F. (1994). Autism: Beyond "theory of mind". Cognition, 50, 115-132.

Happe, F. G. E. (1994). Autism: An introduction to psychological theory. London: UCL Press.

Griffith, E. M., Pennington, B. F., Wehner, E. A., & Rogers, S. J. (1999). Executive functions in young children with autism. Child Development, 70, 817-832.

THEORY OF MIND IN NON-HUMANS


Essay Questions

Do primates understand what others can or cannot see? Is their knowledge implicit or explicit?

Are primates capable of insightful deception?

To what extent do dogs have a theory of mind?

Essential reading. If you just read one paper, read one of: Good introductions to this area can be found in:

Byrne, R. (1995) The Thinking Ape. Oxford University Press. Ch. 8 & 9.

Mitchell, P. (1997) Introduction to theory of mind: Children, Autism and Apes. Arnold: London. Ch.3.

Tomasello, M., & Call, J. (1997). Primate cognition (chapter 10 especially). New York: Oxford University Press.

Background reading:

Multiple models stage in animals:Suddendorf, T., & Whitten, A. (2001). Mental evolution and development: Evidence for secondary representations in children, great apes, and other animals. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 629 – 650.

Understanding mental states:Whiten, A. & Byrne, R.W. (1988) Tactical deception in primates. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 11, 233-73.

Povinelli, D.J. & Eddy, T.J. (1996) What young chimpanzees know about seeing. Mongraphs of the Socety for Research in Child Development.

Povinelli, D. J., & Giambrone, S. (2001). Reasoning about beliefs: A human specialization? Child Development, 72, 691-695.

Hare, B., Call, J., Agnetta, B., & Tomasello, M. (2000). Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see. Animal Behaviour, 59, 771-785.

Miklosi, A., Polgardi, R., Topal, J., & Csanyi, V. (1998). Use of experimenter-given cues in dogs. Animal Cognition, 1, 113-121.

Soproni, K., Miklosi, A., Topal, J., & Csanyi, V. (2001). Comprehension of human communicative signs in pet dogs (canis familiaris). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115, 122-126.


Week 4

TUTORIALS. Summarize and discuss the lecture on:

1) theory of mind: autismIn what ways is the theory of mind of autistic children lacking? Does the executive function account explain theory of mind deficits?

2) Theory of mind in non-humans.To what extent do chimpanzees and dogs have a theory of mind?

Remember this week is when the first tutorial paper will be presented.

IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE AND EXPLICITATION

Essay Questions:

What potential problems face researchers when attempting to demonstrate implicit knowledge in children? How have these problems been overcome?

Do dissociations in responses given in different modalities necessarily suggest the operation of different knowledge bases?

Readings

Essential reading . If you just read one paper, read one of:

Kamiloff-Smith, A. (1992) Beyond Modularity. MIT Press. (ch. 1)

Perner, J. & Clements, W.A. (1997) From an Implicit to an Explicit "Theory of Mind". In Rossetti, Y. and Revonsuo A. (Eds.). Dissociation BUT interaction between conscious and nonconscious processing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ruffman, T. (2000). Nonverbal theory of mind: Is it important, is it implicit, is it simulation, is it relevant to autism? In J. W. Astington (Ed.), Minds in the making: Essays in honor of David R. Olson (pp.250-266). Oxford: Blackwell.


Ruffman, T., Garnham, W., Import, A., & Connolly, D. (2001). Does eye gaze inidcate implicit knowledge of false belief? Charting transitions in knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 80, 201-224.

Background reading :

Breckenridge-Church, R., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1986). The mismatch between gesture and speech as an index of transitional knowledge.Cognition, 23, 43-71.

Clements, W.A. & Perner, J. (1994) Implicit understanding of belief. Cognitive Development 9, 377-395.

DiSessa, A. A. (1994) Speculations on the Foundation of Knowledge and Intelligence. In Tirosh, D. (Ed) Implicit and Explicit Knowledge: An Educational Approach. Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Goldin-Meadow, S., Alibali, M., & Beckinridge-Church (1993).Transitions in concept acquisition: using the hand to read themind. Psychological Review, 100, 279-297.

Goldin-Meadow, S., Nusbaum, H., Garber, P., & Breckenridge-Church,R. (1993). Transitions in learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 19, 92-107.

Perry, M., Breckenridge-Church, R., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1988).Transitional knowledge in the acquisition of concepts. CognitiveDevelopment, 7, 109-122.

Siegler, R. (1996) Emerging Minds. Oxford University Press. (Ch. 2 & 8)

SELF-CONSCIOUS MEMORY

Essay Questions

What are the criteria for deciding when a memory is based on autonoetic consciousness or noetic consciousness? How do they differ and why is autonoetic concsiousness associated with frontal lobe development?

Why might the avoidance of false memories (false alarms) require self-conscious memory?


Wheeler, M. A., Stuss, D. T., & Tulving, E. (1997). Toward a theory of episodic memory: The frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 331-354. ***Note. You can stop reading at page 346***

Background reading:

Friedman, W. J. (1993). Memory for the time of past events. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 44-66.


Perner, J., & Ruffman, T. (1995). Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: Developmental evidence and speculation on childhood amnesia. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 59, 516-548.

Schacter, D. L. (1987). Memory, amnesia, and frontal lobe dysfunction. Psychobiology, 15, 21-36.

Web sites relevant to false memories:

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm(This one talks about research by Spanos on hypnotism and creating falsememories)http://www.bennett.com/research/falsemem.htm

Week 5


1)Implicit knowledge and explicitation.1. What is the evidence for children possessing implicit knowledge in the absence of explicit knowledge?2. Discuss the transition from implicit to explicit knowledge.

2) Self-conscious memoryWhat are the different sorts of explicit memories?

IMPLICIT-EXPLICIT MEMORY

Essay Questions:

1) To what extent do we have control over our own memories?2) What is the evidence that events occuring during general anaesthesia can later influence the patient?

Readings:

Essential reading . If you read just one paper on this topic, read one of.

Jacoby, L.L., Toth, J.P., Lindsay, D.S., & Debner, J.A. (1992). Lectures for a layperson: Methods for revealing unconscious processes. In R.F. Bornstein & T.S. Pittman (Eds) Perception without awareness: Cognitive, clinical, and social perspectives. The Guilford Press: New York. Jacoby, L., Lindsay, S., & Toth, J. (1992) Unconscious influences revealed: Attention, awareness, and control. American Psychologist, 47, 802-809.

http://www.bennett.com/research/falsemem.htm

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm


Background reading:Memory Illusions.

Jacoby, L., & Whitehouse, K. (1989). An illusion of memory: False recognition influenced by unconscious perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 126-135.

Jacoby, L., Woloshyn, V., & Kelley, C. (1989). Becoming famous without being recognized: Unconscious influences of memory produced by dividing attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 115-125.

Memory under anaesthesia.

Bonke, B., Fitch, W., & Millar, K. (Eds) (1990). Memory and awareness in anaesthesia. Amsterdam. Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers. Especially the overview chapter by Kihlstrom, J. & Schacter, D. "Anaesthesia, amnesia, and the cognitive unconscious" pp 21-44.

Bonebakker, A. E., Bonke, B., Klein, M. D., Wolters, G., Stijnen, Th., Passchier, J., & Merikle, P. M. (1996). Information processing during general anesthesia: Evidence for unconscious memory. Memory & Cognition, 24, 766-776.

Merikle, P. M., & Daneman, M. (1996). Memory for unconsciously perceived events: Evidence from anesthetized patients. Consciousness and Cognition, 5, 525-541Available at: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmerikle/

Andrade, J. (2001). Learning during sedation, anesthesia and surgery. In M. M. Ghoneim (Ed.), Awareness during anesthesia. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Week 6

TUTORIALS. Summarize and discuss the lectures on implicit memory.Explain the Jacoby process dissociation procedure.

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION

Essay Questions:

Do unconscious and conscious perceptual processes differ? How?

Readings

Essential reading . If you had to read just one thing, look at:

See various articles (each one short) in American Psychologist, June 1992, particularly the ones by Merikle and Greenwald. (The latter two papers are in the Res. Fac. collection).

http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmerikle/


Merikle, P. M., & Daneman, M. (1998). Psychological investigations of unconscious perception. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, 5-18. Available at: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmerikle/

Background reading:

The original Sussex Marcel experiments:Marcel, A. J. (1983). Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 197-237.

Marcel, A.J. (1980). Conscious and preconscious recognition of polysemous words: Locating the selective effects of prior verbal context. In R.S. Nickerson (Ed.), Attention and Performance VIII. Erlbaum: Hillsdale: NJ.

Subjective threshold:Cheesman, J., & Merikle, P. M. (1986). Distinguishing conscious from unconscious perceptual processes. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 40, 343-367.

Process dissociation procedure:Merikle, P. M., & Joordens, S. (1997). Parallels between perception without attention and

perception without awareness . Consciousness and Cognition, 6, 219-236.

Critique:Holender, D. (1986). Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening,

parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 9, 1-66. (and see commentaries.)

some online papers on subliminal perception can be found at:http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmerikle/http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/

Week 7

TUTORIALS. Summarize and discuss the lectures on subliminal perception:How do we know when perception is unconscious? What is an appropriate measure of consciousness (distinguish subjective from objective thresholds)?

IMPLICIT VS EXPLICIT LEARNING

Essay Questions:

Are there distinct implicit and explicit learning modes?

Readings

http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/




Essential reading . If you just read one paper, read one of:

Cleeremans, A., Destrebecqz, A., & Boyer, M. (1998). Implicit learning: News from the front. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 406-415. (nice short paper) Available at:http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/axc-papers.html

Dienes, Z., & Berry, D. (1997). Implicit learning: below the subjective threshold. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 4, 3-23. (Reasonably heavy going)

Berry, D. C., & Dienes, Z. (1994) Implicit Learning: theoretical and empirical issues. Lawrence Erlbaum. Chapters 1, 5 and 8 give overviews.

Background reading:

Dulany, D.E., Carlson, R.A. & Dewey, G.I. (1984). A case of syntactical learning and judgement: How conscious and how abstract? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 541-555.

Mathews, R.C., Buss, R.R., Stanley, W.B., Blanchard-Fields, F., Cho, J R. & Druhan, B. (1989). The role of implicit and explicit processes in learning from examples: A synergistic effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 1083-1100.

Reber, A.S. (1989). Implicit learning and tacit knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 219-235.

Shanks, D. R., & St. John, M. F. (1994). Characteristics of dissociable human learning systems. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 17, 367-448. (and see commentaries.)

Dienes, Z., Altmann, G., Kwan, L., & Goode, A. (1995). Unconscious knowledge of an artificial grammar is applied strategically. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 1322-1338

Destrebecqz, A. & Cleeremans, A. (2001). Can sequence learning be implicit? New evidence with the process dissociation procedure, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2), pp. 343-350.

A THEORY OF IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

Essay questions:1) Discuss the representational basis of implicit knowledge.2) How are the concepts of representation and consciousness related?


http://srsc.ulb.ac.be/axcWWW/axc-papers.html


Dienes, Z., & Perner, J. (2002). A theory of the implicit nature of implicit learning. In French, R M & Cleeremans, A. (Eds), Implicit Learning and Consciousness: An Empirical, Philosophical, and Computational Consensus in the Making? Psychology Press (pp 68-92).Available at:http://biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/Zoltan_Dienes/publications.html

Background:

For more detail and numerous commentaries seeDienes, Z., & Perner, J. (1999) A theory of implicit and explicit knowledge. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 22, 735-755. Available at http://biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/Zoltan_Dienes/publications.html(commentaries not available on the web.)This is heavy going.

Week 8


1) implicit learning lectures:1) What is implicit learning?2) What methodological criteria are there for determining if knowledge is implicit or explicit?

2) A theory of implicit knowledgeWhat are the different ways in which a representation could represent knowledge implicitly?

HYPNOSIS

Essay Questions:

1. Is hypnosis an altered state of consciousness?2. Is hypnotic response best thought of in terms of information processing boxes (dissociation theory) or in terms of strategies (socio-cognitive theory)?3. Are hypnotic behaviours voluntary or involuntary?

Readings

Essential reading .Look at one of the following books:

Lynn, S. J., & Rhue, J. W. (Eds) (1991). Theories of hypnosis: Current models and perspectives. The Guilford Press: New York. Copies of the chapters by Hilgard and Spanos are in Fac. Res. collection.

Fromm, E., & Nash, M. R. (Eds) (1992). Contemporary hypnosis research. The Guilford Press: New York. Again, see chapters by Hilgard and Spanos, in Fac. Res. Collection.

http://biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/Zoltan_Dienes/publications.html



Background reading:

For a basic introduction to hypnosis see (written by Kihlstrom, J. F. , 2000): http://www.institute-shot.com/hypnosis_and_health.htm

Kirsch, I. & Lynn, S. J. (1998). Dissociation theories of hypnosis. Psychological Bulletin, 123, 100-115.And replies:Kihlstrom, J. F. (1998). pp 186-191;Woody, E., & Sadler, P. (1998). pp 192-197; Kirsch & Lynn, pp 198-202.

Spanos, N. (1986). Hypnotic behaviour: A social-psychological interpretation of amnesia, analgesia, and "trance logic" Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 9, 449-502.

Can hypnotic subjects resist suggestions?

Lynn, S. J., Nash, M. R., Rhue, J. W., Frauman, D. C., & Sweeney, C. A. (1984). Nonvolition, expectancies, and hypnotic rapport. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 93, 295-303.

Do posthypnotic suggestions automatically elicit behaviour?

Spanos, N. P., Menary, E., Brett, P. J., Cross, W., & Ahmed, Q. (1987). Failure of posthypnotic responding to occur outside the experimental setting. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 96, 52-57.

Hypnosis as an altered state?

Sheehan, P. W., & McConkey, K. M. (1982). Hypnosis and experience: the exploration of phenomena and process. Hillsdale, N.J.:Erlbaum. Chapter One.

Kirsch, I., & Lynn, S. J. (1995). The altered state of hypnosis: Changes in the theoretical landscape. American Psychologist, 50, 846-858.

Can hypnosis make a person perform anti-social acts?

Laurence, J-R, & Perry, C. (1988). Hypnosis, will, and memory: A psycho-legal history. Guilford Press: NY. Pages 297 – 318.

Coe, W. C., Kobayashi, K., & Howard, M. L. (1973). Experimental and ethical problems in evaluating the influence of hypnosis in antisocial conduct. Journal of Abnormal Psyvhology, 82, 476-482.

Week 9

http://www.institute-shot.com/hypnosis_and_health.htm


TUTORIALS. Summarize and discuss the lectures on

1) Hypnosis demonstration.Reflect on the extent of your volitional control when you were hypnotised.

2) HypnosisWhat are the dissociation and socio-cognitive theories of hypnosis?

3) VolitionCompare and contrast content control and vehicle control.What is volition?

VOLITIONEssay questions:What is the representational basis of voluntary and involuntary action?What are the control processes underlying hypnotic responding?

ReadingsEssential reading.

Good readable introduction: Wegner, D. M. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Bradford Books, MIT Press, Chapters 1 and 2. (See also chapters 3 and 8)

Perner, J. (in press). Dual control and the causal theory of action. In N.Eilan & J.Roessler (Eds.). Agency and self-awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at:http://www.sbg.ac.at/psy/people/perner/literatur_e.htm#buecherA short summary (in the section on metacognitive control) can be found in: Dienes, Z., & Perner, J. (2002). The metacognitive implications of the implicit-explicit distinction. In Chambres, P., Marescaux, P.-J., Izaute, M. (Eds), Metacognition: Process, function, and use. Kluwer. Available at:http://biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/Zoltan_Dienes/publications.html

Background reading.

Norman, D. A., & Shallice, T. (1986). Attention to action. in Davidson, R.J., Schwartz, G.E., & Shapiro, D. (Eds), Consciousness and self-regulation: Advances in research and theory, Volume 4. Plenum Press.

Perner, J. (1998). The meta-intentional nature of executive functions and theory of mind. In P. Carruthers & J. Boucher (Eds.), Language and Thought: Interdisciplinary themes (270-283). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A neurophysiological argument that hypnotic responding involves the supervisory attentional system:


http://www.sbg.ac.at/psy/people/perner/literatur_e.htm#buecher


Crawford, H. J. (1998). Brain Dynamic Shifts During The Elimination Of Perceived Pain And Distress: Neuroimaging Studies of Hypnotic Analgesia.http://www.mcmaster.ca/inabis98/woody/crawford0611/two.html

Baars, B. (1997). In the theatre of consciousness. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Chapter 6 and pp 103-105.

Papers on volition in special issue of the American Psychologist, volume 54, July 1999.

Searle, J. R. (1983). Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter three.

TIME AND CONSCIOUNESS

Essay Questions:

1. Is there a precise time at which we start to be conscious of something?2. Is there a central workspace where everything comes together in consciousness?3. Could we be conscious of a stimulus so briefly that we do not remember seeing it a fraction of a second later?

ReadingsEssential reading. If you read one thing read one of: Dennett, D., & Kinsbourne, M. (1992). Time and the observer: The where and when of consciousness. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 15, 183-201. Also look at some of the commentary and the reply.

Or: Dennett, D. (1991) Consciousness explained (Chapters 5-6). London: Penguin.

Background reading:Baars, B. (1988). A cognitive theory of consciousness (Chapter 2). Cambridge University Press.

Examples of short answer questions

Any name of a methodology, phenomenon, or concept discussed in the lectures or tutorial papers can be used as a short answer topic. Here are some examples you can use, but you do not have to be restricted to these:1. Multiple draft model2. Hidden observer3. Subliminal persuasion 4. Schema5. Tactical deception6. Subjective threshold7. Metarepresentation

http://www.mcmaster.ca/inabis98/woody/crawford0611/two.html


8. Dualism9. Orwellian vs Stalinesque revisions10. Automatic vs intentional uses of memory11. Inter-modal coordination12. Single updating model13. Gesture-speech mismatch14. Self-perpetuating biases15. Hypnotic dissociation.16. Prelief.17. Content control18. Process dissociation procedure19. Artificial grammar learning20. fact implicitness


Papers for tutorial presentations (all essential reading)

1. Theory of mindPerner, J. (1994) "Prelief": The conceptual origins. In C. Lewis & P. Mitchell (Eds.), Children's early understanding of mind (pp 261-286). Hove, UK: Erlbaum. (Tutor: Lance Slade)

2. Is theory of mind a uniquely human ability?Hare, B., Call, J., Agnetta, B., & Tomasello, M. (2000). Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see. Animal Behaviour, 59, 771-785.(Tutor: Sue Sullivan)

3. AutismRuffman, T., Garnham, W., & Rideout, P. (2001). Social understanding in autism: Eye gaze as a measure of core insights. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 1083-1094. (Tutor: Sue Sullivan or Lance Slade)

4. Subliminal self-help tapes

Greenwald, A. G., Spagenberg, E. R., Pratkanis, A. R., & Eskenazi, J. (1991). Double-blind tests of subliminal self-help audiotapes. Psychological Science, 2, 119-122.

Russell, T. G., Rowe, W., & Smouse, A. (1991). Subliminal self-help tapes and academic achievement: An evaluation. Journal of Counselling and Development, 69, 359-362.(Tutor: Zoltan Dienes)

5. Is implicit learning relevant to understanding clinical syndromes?

Hill, T., Lewicki, P., & Neubauer, R. (1991). The development of depressive encoding dispositions: A case of self-perpetuation of biases. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 392-409.(Tutor: Zoltan Dienes)

6. Can hypnosis be explained by the ideomotor theory of volition?

Zamansky, H. S., & Clark, L. E. (1986). Cognitive competition and hypnotic behaviour: Whither absorption? International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 34, 205-214.(Tutor: Zoltan Dienes)

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