Complex systems are to be seen as typically having multiple levels of organization. For instance, in the behavioural and cognitive sciences, there has been a long lasting trend, promoted by the seminal work of David Marr, putting focus on three distinct levels of analysis: the computational level, accounting for the What and Why issues, the algorithmic and the implementational levels specifying the How problem. However, the tremendous developments in neuroscience knowledge about processes at different scales of organization together with the (...) complexity of today cognitive theories suggest that there will hardly be only three levels of explanation. Instead, there will be many different degrees of commitments corresponding to the different granularities—from high-level (behavioural) models to low-level (neural and molecular) models of the cognitive research program. For instance, Bayesian approaches, that are usually advocated for formalizing Marr’s computational level and rational behaviour, have even been adopted to model synaptic plasticity and axon guidance by molecular gradients. As a result, we can consider the behavioural scientist as dealing with models at a multiplicity of levels. The purpose of this Research Topic in Frontiers in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is to promote an approach to the role of the levels and explanation and models which is of interest for cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, psychologists, behavioural scientists, and philosophers of science. (shrink)

Electroencephalogram based Brain–Computer Interfaces enable stroke and motor neuron disease patients to communicate and control devices. Mindfulness meditation has been claimed to enhance metacognitive regulation. The current study explores whether mindfulness meditation training can thus improve the performance of BCI users. To eliminate the possibility of expectation of improvement influencing the results, we introduced a music training condition. A norming study found that both meditation and music interventions elicited clear expectations for improvement on the BCI task, with the strength of (...) expectation being closely matched. In the main 12 week intervention study, seventy-six healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to three groups: a meditation training group; a music training group; and a no treatment control group. The mindfulness meditation training group obtained a significantly higher BCI accuracy compared to both the music training and no-treatment control groups after the intervention, indicating effects of meditation above and beyond expectancy effects. (shrink)

The time course of different metacognitive experiences of knowledge was investigated using artificial grammar learning. Experiment 1 revealed that when participants are aware of the basis of their judgments decisions are made most rapidly, followed by decisions made with conscious judgment but without conscious knowledge of underlying structure , and guess responses were made most slowly, even when controlling for differences in confidence and accuracy. In experiment 2, short response deadlines decreased the accuracy of unconscious but not conscious structural knowledge. (...) Conversely, the deadline decreased the proportion of conscious structural knowledge in favour of guessing. Unconscious structural knowledge can be applied rapidly but becomes more reliable with additional metacognitive processing time whereas conscious structural knowledge is an all-or-nothing response that cannot always be applied rapidly. These dissociations corroborate quite separate theories of recognition and metacognition. (shrink)

Unconscious Thought Theory posits that a period of distraction after information acquisition leads to unconscious processing which enhances decision making relative to conscious deliberation or immediate choice . Support thus far has been mixed. In the present study, artificial grammar learning was used in order to produce measurable amounts of conscious and unconscious knowledge. Intermediate phases were introduced between training and testing. Participants engaged in conscious deliberation of grammar rules, were distracted for the same period of time, or progressed immediately (...) from training to testing. No differences in accuracy were found between intermediate phase groups acting on decisions made with meta-cognitive awareness . However, the accuracy of guess responses was significantly higher after distraction relative to immediate progression or conscious deliberation. The results suggest any beneficial effects of ‘unconscious thought’ may not always transfer to conscious awareness. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that people can implicitly acquire mappings between word forms and literal meanings . We argue, from the metaphor-representation and embodiment perspectives, that people can unconsciously establish mappings between word forms and not only literal but also metaphorical meanings. Using Williams’ paradigm, we found that transfer of form-meaning connections from a concrete domain to an abstract domain was achieved in a metaphor-consistent way without awareness. Our results support the view that unconscious knowledge can be flexibly deployed in (...) an abstract way not previously explored in the implicit learning literature. (shrink)

The study aims to help characterize the sort of structures about which people can acquire unconscious knowledge. It is already well established that people can implicitly learn n-grams and also repetition patterns. We explore the acquisition of unconscious structural knowledge of symmetry. Chinese Tang poetry uses a specific sort of mirror symmetry, an inversion rule with respect to the tones of characters in successive lines of verse. We show, using artificial poetry to control both n-gram structure and repetition patterns, that (...) people can implicitly learn to discriminate inversions from non-inversions, presenting a challenge to existing models of implicit learning. (shrink)

We demonstrated unconscious learning of task-irrelevant perceptual regularities in a Serial Reaction Time task in both visual and auditory domains. Participants were required to respond to different letters or syllables which occurred in random order. Unbeknownst to participants, the color of the two letters or the tone of the syllables varied according to certain rules. Reaction times indicated that people indeed learnt both the color and tonal regularities indicating that task-irrelevant sequence structure can be learned perceptually. In a subsequent prediction (...) test of knowledge of the color or tonal cues using subjective measures, we showed that people could acquire task irrelevant knowledge unconsciously. (shrink)

This paper investigated how implicit and explicit knowledge is reflected in event-related potentials in sequence learning. ERPs were recorded during a serial reaction time task. The results showed that there were greater RT benefits for standard compared with deviant stimuli later than early on, indicating sequence learning. After training, more standard triplets were generated under inclusion than exclusion tests and more standard triplets under exclusion than chance level, indicating that participants acquired both explicit and implicit knowledge. However, deviant targets elicited (...) enhanced N2 and P3 components for targets with explicit knowledge but a larger N2 effect for targets with implicit knowledge, revealing that implicit knowledge expresses itself in relatively early components and explicit knowledge in additional P3 components. The results help resolve current debate about the neural substrates supporting implicit and explicit learning. (shrink)

We explore three methods for measuring the conscious status of knowledge using the artificial grammar learning paradigm. We show wagering is no more sensitive to conscious knowledge than simple verbal confidence reports but is affected by risk aversion. When people wager rather than give verbal confidence they are less ready to indicate high confidence. We introduce a “no-loss gambling” method which is insensitive to risk aversion. We show that when people are just as ready to bet on a genuine random (...) process as their own classification decisions, their classifications are still above baseline, indicating knowledge participants are not aware of having. Our results have methodological implications for any study investigating whether people are aware of knowing. (shrink)

Implicit learning is the process through which we become sensitive to certain regularities in the environment (1) in the absence of intention to learn about those regularities (2) in the absence of awareness that one is learning, and (3) in such a way that the resulting knowledge is difficult to express.

The ecologist today finds scarce ground safe from controversy. Decisions must be made about what combination of data, goals, methods, and theories offers them the foundations and tools they need to construct and defend their research. When push comes to shove, ecologists often turn to philosophy to justify why it is their approach that is scientific. Karl Popper’s image of science as bold conjectures and heroic refutations is routinely enlisted to justify testing hypotheses over merely confirming them. One of the (...) most controversial theories in contemporary science is the Neutral Theory of Ecology. Its chief developer and proponent, Stephen Hubbell, presents the neutral theory as a bold conjecture that has so far escaped refutation. Critics of the neutral theory claim that it already stands refuted, despite what the dogmatic neutralists say. We see the controversy through a Popperian lens. But Popper’s is an impoverished philosophy of science that distorts contemporary ecology. -/- The controversy surrounding the neutral theory actually rests on a methodological fault. There is a strong but messy historical link between the concepts of being neutral and being null in biology, and Hubbell perpetuates this when he claims that the neutral theory is supplies the appropriate null for testing alternative theories. What method is being followed here? There are three contenders: -/- Null hypothesis testing tests for whether a there is a pattern to be explained. Null modeling tests for whether a process is causally relevant to a pattern. Baseline modeling apportions relative responsibility to multiple processes each relevant to a pattern. -/- Whether the neutral theory supplies an appropriate “null” depends upon whether null hypothesis, null modeling, or baseline model is intended. These methods prescribe distinct inference patterns. If they are null hypothesis testing or null modeling, the neutralists’s reasoning is invalid. If they are baseline modeling, the justification of a crucial assumption remains opaque. Either way, the neutral-null connection is being exploited rhetorically to privilege the neutral theory over its rivals. Clarifying the reasoning immunizes us against the rhetoric and foregrounds the underlying virtues of the neutralist approach to ecology. -/- The Popperian lens distorts theoretical development as dogmatism. Lakatos’s view of science as the development of research programmes clarifies the epistemology of the neutral theory. Focusing philosophical attention on the neutralist research programme illuminates (1) the synchronic uses of the neutral theory to make predictions and give descriptions and explanations; (2) its diachronic development in response to theoretical innovation and confrontation with data; (3) its complex relationships to alternative theories. For example, baseline modeling is now seen to be its primary explanatory heuristic. The justification for baseline modeling with the neutral theory, previously hidden from view, is seen in the logic of in the neutralist research programme. (shrink)

Over the past few years numerous proposals have appeared that attempt to characterize consciousness in terms of what could be called its computational correlates: Principles of information processing with which to characterize the differences between conscious and unconscious processing. Proposed computational correlates include architectural specialization (such as the involvement of specific regions of the brain in conscious processing), properties of representations (such as their stability in time or their strength), and properties of specific processes (such as resonance, synchrony, interactivity, or (...) information integration). In exactly the same way as one can engage in a search for the neural correlates of consciousness, one can thus search for the computational correlates of consciousness. The most direct way of doing is to contrast models of conscious versus unconscious information processing. In this paper, I review these developments and illustrate how computational modeling of specific cognitive processes can be useful in exploring and in formulating putative computational principles through which to capture the differences between conscious and unconscious cognition. What can be gained from such approaches to the problem of consciousness is an understanding of the function it plays in information processing and of the mechanisms that subtend it. Here, I suggest that the central function of consciousness is to make it possible for cognitive agents to exert ?exible, adaptive control over behavior. From this perspective, consciousness is best characterized as involving (1) a graded continuum de?ned over quality of representation, such that availability to consciousness and to cognitive control correlates with properties of representation, and (2) the implication of systems of meta-representations. (shrink)