harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) (12/22/90)
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article to appear in
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary
journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on important and
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IS HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING CONSCIOUS?
Max Velmans
Department of Psychology
Goldsmiths College
University of London
electronic mail: MLV@gold.lon.ac.uk
KEY WORDS: consciousness, information processing, brain, unconscious,
attention, mind, functionalism, reductionism, complementarity.
ABSTRACT: Investigations of the function of consciousness in human
information processing have focused mainly on two questions: (1) where
does consciousness enter into the information processing sequence and
(2) how does conscious processing differ from preconscious and
unconscious processing. Input analysis is thought to be initially
"preconscious," "pre-attentive," fast, involuntary, and automatic. This
is followed by "conscious," "focal-attentive" analysis which is
relatively slow, voluntary, and flexible. It is thought that simple,
familiar stimuli can be identified preconsciously, but conscious
processing is needed to identify complex, novel stimuli. Conscious
processing has also been thought to be necessary for choice, learning
and memory, and the organization of complex, novel responses,
particularly those requiring planning, reflection, or creativity.
This target article reviews evidence that consciousness performs none
of these functions. Consciousness nearly always results from
focal-attentive processing (as a form of output) but does not itself
enter into this or any other form of human information processing. This
suggests that the term "conscious process" needs re-examination.
Consciousness appears to be necessary in a variety of tasks because
they require focal-attentive processing; if consciousness is absent,
focal-attentive processing is absent. From a first-person perspective,
however, conscious states are causally effective. First-person accounts
are complementary to third-person accounts. Although they can be
translated into third-person accounts, they cannot be reduced to them.