: The development of the interdisciplinary areas of cognitive, affective and action neurosciences contributes to the identification of neurobiological bases of conscious experience. The structure of consciousness was philosophically conceived a century ago as consisting of a subjective pole, the bearer of experiences, and an objective pole composed of experienced contents. In more recent formulations, Nagel refers to a “point of view”, in which qualitative experiences are anchored, while Velmans understands that phenomenal content is composed of mental representations “projected” to (...) the space external to the brains that construct them. In Freudian psychology, the conscious mind contains a tension between the Id and the Ego. How to relate this bipolar structure with the results of neuroscience? I propose the notion of projection [also used by Williford et al. ] as a bridge principle connecting the neurobiological systems of knowing, feeling and acting with the bipolar structure. The projective process is considered responsible for the generation of the sense of self and the sense of the world, composing an informational phenomenal field generated by the nervous system and experienced in the first-person perspective. After presenting the projective hypothesis, I discuss its philosophical status, relating it to the phenomenal and high-order thought approaches, and a mathematical model of projection. Eight ways of testing the status of the projective hypothesis are briefly mentioned. Resumo: O desenvolvimento de áreas interdisciplinares das neurociências, contribui para a identificação das bases neurobiológicas da experiência consciente. A estrutura intrínseca da experiência consciente foi filosoficamente concebida há um século como consistindo de um pólo subjetivo, o portador de experiências, e um pólo objetivo, composto dos conteúdos experimentados. Em formulações mais recentes, Thomas Nagel refere-se a um “ponto de vista”, no qual experiências qualitativas são ancoradas, enquanto Max Velmans entende que o conteúdo fenomenal é composto de representações mentais “projetadas” para o espaço externo ao cérebro que as constrói. Na psicologia freudiana, a mente consciente contém uma tensão entre o Id e o Ego. Como relacionar esta estrutura bipolar com os resultados da neurociência? Proponho a noção de projeção como princípio-ponte, conectando os sistemas neurobiológicos do saber, sentir e agir com a estrutura bipolar. O processo projetivo é considerado responsável pela geração do sentido do eu e do sentido do mundo, compondo um campo fenomenal informacional gerado pelo sistema nervoso e vivenciado na perspectiva da primeira pessoa. Após apresentar a hipótese projetiva, discuto seu status filosófico, relacionando-o às abordagens fenomenológicas, à teoria do pensamento de ordem superior e ao modelo matemático da projeção. Oito maneiras de testar o status da hipótese projetiva são brevemente mencionadas. (shrink)

The Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) reveals that the activation of sets can result in involuntary cognitions that are triggered by external stimuli. In the basic RIT, subjects are presented with an image of an object (e.g., CAT) and instructed to not think of the name of the object. Involuntary subvocalizations of the name (the RIT effect) arise on roughly 80% of the trials. We conducted an electroencephalography (EEG) study to explore the neural correlates of the RIT effect. Subjects were presented (...) with one object at a time in one condition and two objects simultaneously in another condition. Five regions were defined by electrode sites: frontal (F3–F4), parietal (P3–P4), temporal (T3–T4), right hemisphere (F4–P4), and left hemisphere (F3–P3). We focused on the alpha (8–13 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz), delta (0.01–4 Hz), and theta (4–8 Hz) frequencies. (shrink)

In 1959, Neal Miller made the bold claim that the Stimulus–Response, Behaviorist models of that era were describing the way in which stimuli lead to the entry of contents into consciousness (“entry,” for short). Today, researchers have begun to investigate the link between external stimuli and involuntary entry, using paradigms such as the reflexive imagery task (RIT), the focus of our review. The RIT has revealed that stimuli can elicit insuppressible entry of high-level cognitions. Knowledge of the boundary conditions of (...) the RIT effect illuminates the limitations of involuntary processes and the role of consciousness in the regulation of behavior. We review the boundary conditions of this paradigm as well as its systematic effects. Systematic effects are unlikely to be due to experimental demand. While reviewing each effect, we consider its theoretical implications. In addition, throughout our review, we discuss future directions for the study of insuppressible entry using the RIT. Last, we discuss a theoretical development (passive frame theory) that stems from the RIT and illuminates how involuntary entry and encapsulation, though at times disadvantageous for the actor, are essential for adaptiveaction selectionduring the course of ontogeny. (shrink)