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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness
  • Cited by 54
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2007
Online ISBN:
9780511816789
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816789
Subjects:
Philosophy of Mind and Language, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology: General Interest, Cognition
Series:
Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology
Collection:
Cambridge Handbooks of Psychology
Information

Book description

The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.

Reviews

"This volume provides readers from many disciplines with the foundation and knowledge to date on the very comprehensive and complex study of consciousness."
--Janet L. Etzi, PsycCRITIQUES

"...the breath of coverage is impressive....a useful resource....In sum, the book displays how thoroughly our dualistically oriented culture's scientific investigation of human behavior is held in the grip of ancient traditional constructs that are imposed on observed events..."
--Noel W. Smith, State University of New York at Plattsburg, The Psychological Record

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Contents

Page 2 of 2

Contents
  • Chapter 23 - Anthropology of consciousness
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Empirical evidence shows that much of the functioning of our motor system occurs without awareness. It seems that consciousness can manifest itself at three stages: intention to perform an action, performance of intended action, and perception of the effects of performed action. This chapter reviews the evidence that suggests that many aspects of action, from initiation to appreciation of the percepts that guide them, occur without awareness. It argues that one aspect of an action that is normally available to awareness is the sensory consequence(s) of that action, or, more precisely, the prediction of the sensory consequences of that action. Action execution depends on one of the two visual systems. There is a sensorimotor or "how" system, which controls visually guided behavior without access to consciousness. The other is a cognitive or "what" system, which gives rise to perception and is used consciously in pattern recognition and normal visual experience.
  • Chapter 25 - Hunting the ghost: toward a neuroscience of consciousness
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter focuses on two distinct, linguistically oriented approaches to language and consciousness taken by Ray Jackendoff and Wallace Chafe. Jackendoff identifies three basic levels of information processing. One can be conscious of both thoughts and sounds. Language provides evidence of several kinds that consciousness of thoughts has priority over consciousness of sounds in ordinary mental life. It enhances the power of thought in three ways: by allowing thought to be communicated, by making it possible to focus attention on selected aspects of thought, and by providing access to valuations of thought. Chafe distinguishes between immediate and displaced consciousness, the former engaged in direct perception and the latter in experiences that are recalled or imagined. The imagistic and the ideational components of consciousness are held to be central components of thought, as thought is ordinarily understood.
  • Chapter 26 - Neurodynamical approaches to consciousness
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Consciousness of the kind we value often takes narrative forms. This chapter adopts the psychological stance of Bruner who writes that narrative deals in human or human-like intention and action and the vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course. It discusses the interaction-type elements and story-type elements of narrative, and explores whether consciousness has causal properties. The chapter explains the evolution and development of consciousness, and the developmental psychology of narrative consciousness. The chapter presents a debate of a protagonist and an antagonist. It proposes that we accept not only Dennett's metaphor of self-as-novelist but also that, different conclusions may be drawn than those offered by Dennett. The chapter explores the idea of a conscious unitary self, based on functional properties of narrative. It discusses four aspects of consciousness: the Helmholtzian consciousness, Woolfian consciousness, Vygotskyan consciousness, and Meadean consciousness.
  • Chapter 28 - The cognitive neuroscience of memory and consciousness
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Many theorists treat consciousness as a single, all-or-nothing phenomenon, others distinguish between first order consciousness and a meta-level of consciousness. This chapter proposes that discussions of the development of consciousness have been hampered by reliance on relatively undifferentiated notions of consciousness. It describes the Levels of Consciousness (LOC) model, which addresses explicitly the potential implications of neurocognitive development for children's subjective experience. First, the chapter presents an overview of the model and then provides an account of the way in which consciousness develops during the first 5 years of life (and potentially beyond). Finally, it considers the implications of the LOC model for: the structure of consciousness, cognitive control via the use of rules at different levels of complexity, the functions of prefrontal cortex, and the development of consciousness in childhood.
  • Chapter 30 - Consciousness: situated and social
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The normal and abnormal variations in conscious state operate through three fairly well-understood physiological processes: activation (A), input-output gating (I), and modulation (M). This chapter provides an account of the phenomenology of the variations in conscious state, and shows how three mediating brain processes, activation, input-output gating, and modulation, interact over time so as to account for those variations in a unified way. It focuses on variations in consciousness during the sleep-wake cycle across species and draws on evidence from lesion, electrophysiological, and functional neuroimaging studies. By studying the way that consciousness is normally altered when we fall asleep and when we dream, it is possible to obtain insights about how the brain mediates consciousness. Armed with the AIM model, it is possible to obtain a unified view of the genesis of a wide variety of normal and abnormal changes in conscious experience.
  • Chapter 31 - Quantum approaches to consciousness
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Hypnosis is a process in which one person responds to the suggestions given by another for imaginative experiences involving alterations in perception, memory, and the voluntary control of action. This chapter reviews a number of phenomena, including posthypnotic amnesia; hypnotic analgesia; hypnotic deafness, blindness, and agnosia; and emotional numbing, with an eye toward uncovering dissociations between explicit and implicit memory, perception, and emotion. In addition to total or tubular blindness, hypnotic subjects can also be given suggestions for color blindness. Hypnotic suggestions of a different sort may indeed abolish Stroop interference. There is much about hypnosis that appears to be automatic. The controversy over the very nature of hypnosis has often led the investigators to seek evidence of neural and other biological changes to demonstrate that hypnosis is real or, alternatively, to debunk the phenomenon as illusion and fakery.

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