Conscious contents as reflexive processes: Evidence from the habituation of high-level cognitions
Section snippets
Participants
San Francisco State University students (n = 44; 32 females; MAge = 22.3 years, SE = 0.84) participated for course credit. The involvement of human participants in our project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at San Francisco State University.
Stimuli and Apparatus
Stimuli were presented on an Apple iMac computer monitor (50.8 cm) with a viewing distance of approximately 48 cm. Stimulus presentation was controlled by PsyScope software (Cohen, MacWhinney, Flatt, & Provost, 1993). All questions and instructions
Results
We replicated the RIT effect of Allen et al. (2013): During the first presentation (i.e., instantiation = 1) of a visual stimulus, involuntary subvocalizations occurred on a high proportion of the trials (M = .77, SD = .25, SE = .04), a proportion that was significantly different from zero, t(43) = 20.89, p < .0001. The same significant effect was found with arcsine transformations of the proportion data, t(43) = 21.87, p < .0001. (Arcsine transformations are often used to statistically normalize data that are
Discussion
The view that the generation of conscious contents is protected from external control has dominated both lay and scientific circles. Recent theoretical developments (e.g., Firestone and Scholl, in press, Morsella et al., in press) and experimental evidence (e.g., Allen et al., 2013) suggest that, contrary to this prevalent view, the generation of conscious contents is usually automatic and reflex-like. (These current developments are consistent with Fodor, 1983, Helmholtz, 1856, Lashley, 1956,
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Center for Human Culture and Behavior at San Francisco State University. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Pooya Razavi.
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