From rachaelp@U.Arizona.EDU Wed Oct 13 12:39:51 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA17363 for ; Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:39:50 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH344RGBC09D4R9H@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@Arizona.EDU); Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:40:04 MST Received: from pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (pavo-2.U.Arizona.EDU) by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH344R07CW9EDP78@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:40:03 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (rachaelp@localhost) by pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id MAA06992; Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:40:02 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:40:02 -0700 (MST) From: Rachael J Parkinson Subject: attention and consciousness In-reply-to: Cc: David Chalmers , scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO In seminar yesterday we discussed three different views of the nature of consciousness and attention and considered them as possible interpretations of the change blindness studies. As these views are relevant to my comment, I will go over them here briefly: 1) The 'grand illusion' view: Our visual consciousness is course-grained with limited internal representation. On this view, there is no consciousness outside attention. This is the view that we identified with Dennett and Mack and Rock. 2) The reconstructionist theory of vision: There is no grand illusion. In fact, we have fine grained visual consciousness that gives rise to detailed internal representation. We do have consciousness without attention. To account for the change blindness studies, some explanation may be offered. For example, perhaps we do not have memory without attention. This view is associated with Wolfe and Hardcastle. 3) The enactive approach: On this view, we do have fine grained visual consciousness though we only have a limited internal representation. There is consciousness outside of attention. But we must be clear, the fine-grained detail of our visual consciousness is a result of external availability and is not a matter of internal representation. Thus, the contents of consciousness need only be *available* in the world. this externalist view is the one espoused by Noe, Pessoa, and Thompson. I would like to suggest a fourth option. On this view, there is consciousness outside of attention, but that visual consciousness is course-grained, while the consciousness within attention is fine-grained. Thus, we have detailed internal representation of what we are paying attention to and limited internal representation of what we are not. Let me illustrate. We have all had the experience of driving without paying attention or of staring off into space. If attention where required for consciousness, it seems that we would not be phenomenally aware *in any sense* of the outside world. But this does not seem to me to be the case when I reflect on my own experience. In these cases, I would want to say that I was limitedly visually conscious (of course I could not describe the detail of my visual environment) even thought my attention is directed elsewhere. If for example, the whole world were to disappear in one of these 'reflective' moments I would be more inclined to say that I was conscious of the world around me and the change directed my attention to it then that I was not conscious of the world until it's 'disappearance'. I think this view make sense of the cocktail party phenomenon and others like it as it seems that some conscious processing must be going on for your name to jump out at you. We are limitedly phenomenally conscious of what is going on around us at the cocktail party, though we are not paying attention. Hearing our name spoken is something we are already conscious of but now pay attention to. This view may sound a lot like the third view proposed by Noe, Pessoa, and Thompson. But this view is not meant to be an externalist view. It does not merely require that the contents of consciousness be available in the outside world (a very tricky notion as Dave pointed out in class.) The contents of consciousness are those that we have internal representations of; those that we are paying more attention to will be more detailed, those that we are not paying attention to will be significantly less detailed. Maybe we will only be vaguely aware of color, shape, size outside of our attention. Minimally, we will be aware of the existence of this course grained visual experience. This is compatible with the change blindness studies because I am not suggesting that we will be aware of particular changes in our unattended environment. Only that we are aware,in a general and vague sense,of our unattended environment. Perhaps it is this awareness that gives rise to the illusion of a complete detailed visual consciousness. Sorry for the length of my post. Any thoughts on this view? Best, -Rachael From chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Wed Oct 13 21:37:18 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Hopey.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.234]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA18339 for ; Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:37:18 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH3MW4RQU89D4VU4@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:37:32 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH3MW4KM689EDT2N@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:37:31 -0700 (MST) Received: (from chalmers@localhost) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA18328 for scicon; Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:37:05 -0700 Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:37:05 -0700 From: David Chalmers Subject: Consciousness and attention, etc. To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: <199910140437.VAA18328@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> Status: R Hi, a few notes on various things: (1) Tim distinguishes two notions of attention, a phenomenal sort and a non-phenomenal sort. That seems reasonable to me. We might talk about P-attention and A-attention! Tim also asks whether blindsight patients can attend to their blindsight. Interestingly there are results from Robert Kentridge, presented at Tucson III, showing that blindsight subject's performance is improved when they attend to the relevant areas of the visual field. So we have a sort of attention to the object without phenomenal consciousness of the object? Or perhaps, it's safer to say that it's just attention to the spatial location where the object is present. That way, the contents of attention and the contents of consciousness will still line up. (2) Nick suggests that it doesn't make much sense to talk about instaneous conscious perception, and that memory may be required for consciousness. That's an interesting claim. If one accepted this claim, then one might argue that the change blindness studies show that we aren't conscious of the relevant detail in our visual field; and it might suggest that attention mechanisms operate on largely unconscious (not just unattended) stimuli. But why accept that claim? I'd be interested to see reasons for it. (3) Rachael suggests a view on which we have fine-grained consciousness within attention, and coarse-grained consciousness outside attention. That seems reasonable and phenomenologically apt to me -- it seems reasonable that the "attentional spotlight" makes things more vivid and detailed. One relevant question, I guess, is just how coarse-grained the consciousness outside attention is. For example, in the change blindness cases, will there be a change (unnoticed, of course) in the coarse-grained consciousness outside attention, or will it stay the same? If the latter, then we are not so far from the Dennett and Mack/Rock views. If the former, we are closer to the Wolfe/Hardcastle view, with the qualification that consciousness outside attention is not as fine-grained as we might think. (4) If anyone is interested to check out the web demos from Wednesday, they are online (along with a few articles) at: http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/ For something different but very interesting in the ballpark of "experimental phenomenology", check out: http://www.headless.org/ --Dave. From lan@U.Arizona.EDU Thu Oct 14 11:17:33 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Hopey.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.234]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA01668 for ; Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:17:33 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH4FJ9VN809D5B98@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:17:55 MST Received: from pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (pavo-2.U.Arizona.EDU) by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH4FJ9KN8G9EDX7U@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:17:54 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (lan@localhost) by pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id LAA18153; Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:17:54 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:17:53 -0700 (MST) From: Lonnie A Nelson Subject: Re: Consciousness and attention, etc. In-reply-to: <199910140437.VAA18328@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> To: David Chalmers Cc: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Hi all- A couple of comments and questions... > > (2) Nick suggests that it doesn't make much sense to talk about > instaneous conscious perception, and that memory may be required for > consciousness. That's an interesting claim. If one accepted this > claim, then one might argue that the change blindness studies show > that we aren't conscious of the relevant detail in our visual field; > and it might suggest that attention mechanisms operate on largely > unconscious (not just unattended) stimuli. But why accept that claim? > I'd be interested to see reasons for it. The closest thing that I can think of to a reason for this (though I was not the person who proposed it) is in line with the Physicist Fred Allan Wolf's assertion that we are never conscious of anything as it occurs, there is at least, the time taken for the light to reach the eye, the neural signals to become processed, etc. On that view, we are always time t behind the world. But this does not speak to whether or not memory is necessary for consciousness since we would not have to have memory of what the world experienced as we would be a constant (t) behind actual occurrence and would not need to access our memory (that was never formed) from that time frame. However, for the change blindness business, memory may be the determining factor of whether or not change is noticed, unless you are looking at the thing that is changing when it changes, since then you have to compare your memory to the current picture in order to detect a change. > (3) Rachael suggests a view on which we have fine-grained > consciousness within attention, and coarse-grained consciousness > outside attention. That seems reasonable and phenomenologically apt > to me -- it seems reasonable that the "attentional spotlight" makes > things more vivid and detailed. One relevant question, I guess, is > just how coarse-grained the consciousness outside attention is. For > example, in the change blindness cases, will there be a change > (unnoticed, of course) in the coarse-grained consciousness outside > attention, or will it stay the same? If the latter, then we are not > so far from the Dennett and Mack/Rock views. If the former, we are > closer to the Wolfe/Hardcastle view, with the qualification that > consciousness outside attention is not as fine-grained as we might > think. > THis view makes more sense to me than any of the others presented so far. As far as the degree of coarse grainedness of the consciousness outside of attentional focus, I would bring up two variables that could be looked to as possible answer provdiding lines of thought (or research). The first would be the individual person's "attentional sharpness" that i, the degree of detail that they are capapble of percieving visually. Someone with horrid eyesight is going to be likely to have less attention invested in that mode to begin with, and when they do, they will probab ly be using a pen light as opposed to a mag-lite so to speak. Another variable that I would look to is the degree of patterning present in the stimuli outside the focus of attention. Since the findings regarding the relevance of a stimulus indicate that pattern detection exists outside of attention, one could say that this coarse grained consciousness is constantly undergoing change of content. Unless Dave is referring to something else by "change in consciousness." Just thoughts. Lonnie ________________ It is a common fate of all knowledge to begin as heresy and end as orthodoxy. -Thomas Huxley Lonnie A Nelson Department of Psychology Human Energy Systems Laboratory University of Arizona lan@u.arizona.edu From hvorecky@U.Arizona.EDU Sun Oct 17 16:30:24 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA08990 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:30:24 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH8XCAJS1C9D7HGB@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:30:51 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH8XCAAEMO9EEOZ4@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:30:50 -0700 (MST) Received: from f1n2.u.arizona.edu (IDENT:hvorecky@f1n2.U.Arizona.EDU [128.196.137.102]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA08981 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:30:18 -0700 Received: from localhost (hvorecky@localhost) by f1n2.u.arizona.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA41162 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:30:45 -0700 Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:30:45 -0700 (MST) From: Juraj Hvorecky Subject: Attention and A-con To: Science of Consciousness Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Last class had made me a little puzzled. Prior to it I have always had a strong feeling about the correlation between consciousness and attention. Because so little is known about P-consciousness, I guess I will be more or less talking about AC now. First of all, the clear difference between attention and AC seems to be that one is actual and the other dispositional. Well, exactly this difference is a little mystery to me. What does it mean to talk about being dispositional here? I guess I am only conscious of the events which do actually make it to my attention. There is no awareness whatsoever about any disposition. Consciousness seems to possess no dispositional qualities. It is just what is being realized. One might object that certain inconclusive reports made by conscious subjets imply dispositional character of AC. Statements such as "I have seen something on the screen..." in my understanding show no such a character. They simply refer to what was actually realized, to what the attention was paid. That the attention wasn't sufficient for a detailed account of an event implies very little about the event "being potentially accessible". I apologize for being probably too messy here. If I have to put it in a different wording, it would be something like this - my first person experience (not restected to phenomenality) seems to recognize no dispositional account of consciousness, but supposedly vast majority of my AC events is just that - dispositional mental events. I wonder about this, because the third person description of attention seems to perfectly fit the first person perspective - I perceive something as being attended anytime any third person observer perceives me attending to something. There is no talk about disposition/realization. But it seems like this in the case of AC does not really work juraj From logant@U.Arizona.EDU Sun Oct 17 16:32:38 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA09001 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:32:38 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH8XF2BISW9D7BN0@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:33:05 MST Received: from orion.U.Arizona.EDU by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH8XF2225S9EEZ5X@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:33:05 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (logant@localhost) by orion.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id QAA05102; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:33:04 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:33:04 -0700 (MST) From: Logan T Trujillo Subject: Re: attention and consciousness In-reply-to: To: Rachael J Parkinson Cc: David Chalmers , scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Hello all: In a recent posting Rachel proposed a fourth alternative to the three viewpoints discussed in last Tuesday's class concerning the relationship between consciousness and attention. Here is a quote from her posting: > I would like to suggest a fourth option. On this view, there is > consciousness outside of attention, but that visual consciousness is > course-grained, while the consciousness within attention is fine-grained. > Thus, we have detailed internal representation of what we are paying > attention to and limited internal representation of what we are not. Let > me illustrate. We have all had the experience of driving without paying > attention or of staring off into space. If attention where required for > consciousness, it seems that we would not be phenomenally aware *in any > sense* of the outside world. But this does not seem to me to be the case > when I reflect on my own experience. In these cases, I would want to say > that I was limitedly visually conscious (of course I could not describe > the detail of my visual environment) even thought my attention is directed > elsewhere. If for example, the whole world were to disappear in one of > these 'reflective' moments I would be more inclined to say that I was > conscious of the world around me and the change directed my attention to it > then that I was not conscious of the world until it's 'disappearance'. I like this proposal for two reasons. First, it allows attention and consciousness to be disassociated from one another. Up until our last class meeting, I never thought about the possibility that these two aspects could be decoupled. However in light of the class discussion I now find this notion to be very intriguing. It brings up the possibility that consciousness may be divided into two categories: attentionally focused and non-attentionally focused. Attentionally focused consciousness would be the consciousness of contents that are within the attentional spotlight of one's visual field. It is within this spotlight that detailed visual information would be perceived and made globally accessible to the rest of the processing in the brain. Non-attentionally focused consciousness would be the consciousness of contents outside the attentional spotlight. Here there would be a considerable lack of detailed visual information, yet the information would still be globally available. Such a distinction may also tie in to discussion of conscious vs. unconscious processing in that it may be that certain processes that are usually considered unconscious may in fact be conscious but do not occur within the spotlight of attentional focus. The second reason why I like Rachel's proposal is that it still allows that internal representations of visual stimuli are being produced by the visual system. The central idea of the enactive view - that no internal representations are necessary for consciousness- I find difficult to swallow. If a percept is conscious in virtue of the fact that it is externally available, how does this account for imagination and internal visual imagery? One could close their eyes and recreate in the mind's eye the experience of a perceptual stimulus. Such a percept would no longer be externally available, yet still will be robustly conscious. The fact that such contentful imagery is conscious seems to be a counterargument to the idea that no internal representation is necessary for conscious contents. If in the case of imagination the brain is not creating an internal representation, then just what is going on? I suppose that one could argue that the case in which one views a stimulus with eyes open is different from the case in which one imagines the stimulus; perhaps the various correlations in brain activity that accompany visual perception are just registrations or acknowledgements of the presence and nature of visual stimuli and not representations per se. However there is much empirical evidence that seems to indicate that the same systems that are involved in visual perception are also involved in visual imagery. To suggest that these systems are representing in one case and not representing in the other flies in the face of providing a parsimonious explanation. However Rachel's idea is parsimonious in that internal representation would be occurring in both cases, where the detail of representation is a function of the attention allocated to the features of the stimulus. Logan T. From landsurveyor@hotmail.com Sun Oct 17 16:57:45 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA09030 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:57:44 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH8YB62A0G9D7MM2@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:58:11 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH8YB5KZ9S9EEZLX@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:58:11 -0700 (MST) Received: from hotmail.com (f323.hotmail.com [207.82.250.248]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA09021 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:57:40 -0700 Received: (qmail 7775 invoked by uid 0); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 23:57:37 +0000 Received: from 128.196.51.171 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:57:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 16:57:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Matt Herbert Subject: attention, memory and consciousness To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: <19991017235737.7774.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Originating-IP: [128.196.51.171] Status: RO All, I had some residual questions/worries from the discussion of attention and consciousness last week, so here goes. Hardcastle evades the problem of change blindness across saccades by suggesting that incoming visual data displaces the old data from iconic memory so quickly that the subject simply cannot remember them to report them. What looked like a gap in consciousness turns out to be a failure of memory. I'm wondering what this view, if correct, entails for the phenomenal present. If sensory experiences are so fleeting as to be pushed out of iconic memory in as little as 250msec, it would seem that all our so-called perceptual reports are actually mnemonic reports. (A question for those in the know: Is iconic memory the same mechanism as the "buffer" for a given modality? It appears by all descriptions that it is, but I cannot track down a definitive answer.) Implications for a theory of consciousness are potentially significant. If our visual experience is so transient, and it is always the fate of our visual data to be stored in iconic memory, perhaps consciousness will be nothing more than the ephemeral contents of iconic memory. This doesn't sound very likely to me, but it is a possible result of Hardcastle's line of thought. Hardcastle's alternative explanation of Right Parietal Extinction and Balint's syndrome patients' symptoms suggest that she herself would not favor a conception of consciouness on which its contents are so highly processed as to make it into iconic memory. The consensus explanation of the Extinction patients' symptoms is that the apparent visual defecits are due to attentional defecits. Hardcastle suggests, however, that even the apparent attentional defecits are not enough to show that there are no objects of perceptual experience. There might be something being expereinced that is not sufficiently processed (integrated, conceptualized) to be reported. I don't have Hardcastle's text available at the moment, but I believe she suggests that bare consciousness provides the inchoate elements of experienced objects (unintegrated features), but attentional processes provide the objects themselves. I'm not sure this is a plausible defense. If there is a proto-experience that underlies full-blown experience, it seems to be not quite what is meant by "the contents of consciousness." To speak only of my own phenomenology, I do not experience unintegrated features, but integrated objects. I believe as firmly as Hardcastle that there are data present in my phenomenal field that are, in a sense, prior to the neatly-bounded objects of my experience, but I *infer* their presence; I do not experience it. In short, I think it's fair to say that something like James' blomming buzzing confusion underlies one's phenomenal experience, but such proto-experience is *less* properly called experience than its more processed relatives. Matt Herbert Nim eat Nim eat. Drink eat me Nim. Me gum me gum. You me banana me banana you. --Nim the signing chimp ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From lnielsen@azstarnet.com Sun Oct 17 17:49:41 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA09225 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 17:49:40 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH904JZ3U89D7MFK@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 17:50:07 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH904JQ7W09EF1V9@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 17:50:07 -0700 (MST) Received: from cepheus.azstarnet.com (cepheus.azstarnet.com [169.197.56.195]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA09221 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 17:49:35 -0700 Received: from zippo (dialup001ip091.tus.azstarnet.com [169.197.12.91]) by cepheus.azstarnet.com (8.9.3+blt.Beta0/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA09523 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 17:49:59 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 17:55:52 -0700 From: Lis Nielsen Subject: RE: iconic memory and buffers In-reply-to: <19991017235737.7774.qmail@hotmail.com> To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Reply-to: lnielsen@u.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Importance: Normal X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-priority: Normal X-Sent-via: StarNet http://www.azstarnet.com/ Status: RO Matt asked: Is iconic memory the same mechanism as the "buffer" for a given modality? It appears by all descriptions that it is, but I cannot track down a definitive answer. Iconic memory is the memory of the stimulus that persists in the sensory system for a very brief time after stimulus presentation. Visual afterimages are an example of iconic memory. In the auditory modality, one speaks of echoic memory. These 'memories' require no rehearsal in order to hang around. On the other hand, buffer storage refers to information in working memory that is rehearsed and available for ongoing processing. The phonological loop (in which you repeat the phone number you want to remember) or the visuo-spatial scratch pad (in which you store the memory of some visual image in order to access it again) are examples of types of buffers related to different modalities in Baddeley's working memory system. I don't have the Hardcastle paper with me to see if she uses the term buffer to refer to iconic memory, but the distinctions above are those that I am familiar with from Cognitive Psychology. Lis From chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Sun Oct 17 21:38:33 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA09531 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:38:33 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH984BSBC09D6WCO@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:39:00 MST Received: from paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH984BDLVK9EF2BD@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:38:59 -0700 (MST) Received: (from chalmers@localhost) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA09524 for scicon; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:38:23 -0700 Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:38:23 -0700 From: David Chalmers Subject: Re: attention and consciousness To: scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: <199910180438.VAA09524@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu> Status: R Quick notes about attention and consciousness: (1) Logan suggests that phenomena of imagination and imagery provide evidence against the "enactive" claim that internal representation is not required for consciousness. In reply, an enactivist could say: internal representation is *compatible* with consciousness, and may even be required for some *kinds* of consciousness (perhaps for imagery, imagination, attention, etc). The claim is just that it isn't necessary -- so there are some conscious states that can be present without internal representation. When the claim is viewed this way, these phenomena may no longer be evidence against it. (2) Juraj asks about the difference between A-consciousness and attention. He notes that A-consciousness is dispositional but consciousness doesn't seem dispositional. One response is to say that P-consciousness certainly isn't dispositional, and maybe Juraj is just importing intuitions about P-consciousness here. A second would be to say that A-consciousness is *defined* in terms of accessibility, so it is dispositional by definition. A third response would be to say maybe Juraj is implicitly understanding A-consciousness to be defined differently, so that access rather than just accessibility is required. That would be OK, but it would be a terminological point; A-consciousness is itself a term of art and we can define it how we like. I like to stress the definition in terms of accessibility, since this correlates best with P-consciousness. But if one is less concerned with this correlation, there is certainly some valid notion of consciousness -- call it A'-consciousness -- that requires not just accessibility but access. And it may well be that A'-consciousness is strongly connected to attention. (3) Matt draws some interesting consequences from Hardcastle's point that phenomenal iconic memory is really short and that this can distort the accuracy of phenomenal reports. He says this might suggest that phenomenal perceptual reports are really mnemonic reports; he also suggests that maybe then consciousness is no more than iconic memory. These are interesting claims but I'm not quite sure why they follow. Re the first claim, presumably there roughly two sorts of reports (of visual experiences, say): those made while the experience is still present and those made after the experience is absent. Presumably we'd say the latter are in some sense mnemonic and the former are in some sense perceptual. It's not clear to me how the shortness of memory will itself make reports in the first class mnemonic; on the face of it, this point would have more impact on those in the second class (those we already take to be mnemonic). If the experience is still present, the shortness of memory will presumably be fairly irrelevant, and the reports of the experience will be broadly perceptual. Of course there is processing time involves, which one might argue will introduce a mnemonic element, but it's not clear how the shortness of memory will make a difference to this point. Re the second claim, maybe one could argue that our reports of consciousness are really reflecting our iconic memory (somewhat as in the last point above). But presumably Hardcastle would use this to suggest that the reports don't fully reflect consciousness itself, as there is a difference between consciousness and memories thereof. It's not clear to me how one gets from this observation to the claim that all there is to consciousness is iconic memory. But maybe Matt can elaborate on the reasoning here. Re Matt's point about pre-integrated experience: it's true that in familiar cases, where there is integration of experience, we count the integrated objects as part of experience, not the pre-intrgrated stuff. But that's compatible with saying that in fringe or fleeting cases where the experience never gets integrated at all, the pre-integrated stuff is still part of experience. It's as if experience can be processed and developed to various levels. The sort that we are most familiar with (from attention etc) is the integrated sort, but the other sort might also exist, even if for obvious reasons it is natural that it is not so familiar. --Dave. From jmartine@U.Arizona.EDU Sun Oct 17 22:12:15 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA09609 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 22:12:14 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JH99A46TI89D7R8W@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@ARIZONA.EDU); Sun, 17 Oct 1999 22:12:42 MST Received: from orion.U.Arizona.EDU by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JH99A3SFGG9EF3ED@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 22:12:41 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (jmartine@localhost) by orion.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id WAA05450; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 22:12:40 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 22:12:39 -0700 (MST) From: Joel A Martinez Subject: Re: Consciousness and attention, etc. In-reply-to: To: Lonnie A Nelson Cc: David Chalmers , scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: R I think Rachael's suggestion sounds interesting. Ultimately, though, I think to defend this view one would have to answer some version of Dave's question. (Namely, how coarse-grained is consciousness outside attention?) This is because this view walks a fine line between the Dennett/Mack-Rock view and the Wolf/Hardcastle views. A comment Logan made drew attention to an aspect of Rachael's suggestion that I think is interesting and potentially problematic. Logan has a favorable attitude towards this view b/c it separates consciousness and attention. So, non-attentionally focused consciousness would be very coarse grained but still globally available, in some sense. But, I think its worth asking in what sense non-attentionally focused consciousness is available. The change blindness studies seem to show that the information is not available. Subjects cannot use it to help guide action, they do not have any memory of something passing in front of thier visual field, etc... So, in what sense is the information available? If we are going to call the non-attentionally focused consciousness conscious should'nt we be able to say something here? I think this is just a version of Dave's question. (To what extent do we notice changes in the periphery of our visual field?) B/c I am really just trying to put some pressure on the idea that we can be conscious of what we are not attending to. As Rachael points out, the cocktail party phenomena is relevant here. She comments that conscious processes must be going on if one is going to notice, through all the background noise, someone mention her name. This, along with Lonnie's idea of "attentional sharpness" (where she briefly mentions how one mode, say vision, may not be so "sharp" in some individuals), started me thinking about the relevance of other modes of percepiton here. We have different senses at work constantly. It seems likely to me that they influence one another (e.g. hearing affects vision, in some way), and each acts in its own way to help produce a full conscious experience. While this does not help with the question of how coarse-grained the periphery of our visual field is, it may help to explain how our experience can seem unified. That is, there is a lot more than visual input that is relevant when discussing the "smooth-ness" and completeness of conscious experience. I guess what I am wondering is whether information received through modes other than our visual mode of perception is relevant in considering the "smooth-ness" of *visual consciousness*. I am not quite sure how this might work yet. Just a thought. (This is a bit off topic, but I hope its not too unrelated.) -Joel M. Joel A. Martinez Social Science Bldg. Rm. 213 Dept. of Philosophy University of Arizona P.O. Box 210027 Tucson, AZ 85721-0027 USA Office #138 Phone 520-621-7098 From rachaelp@U.Arizona.EDU Tue Oct 19 10:24:12 1999 Return-Path: Received: from Arizona.EDU (Maggie.Telcom.arizona.edu [128.196.128.233]) by paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA13384 for ; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:24:12 -0700 Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) id <01JHBD5088009GVF6Q@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu (ORCPT rfc822;chalmers@arizona.edu); Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:24:41 MST Received: from pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (pavo-2.U.Arizona.EDU) by Telcom.Arizona.EDU (PMDF V5.2-31 #39830) with ESMTP id <01JHBD4ZSMDC9JDCYA@Telcom.Arizona.EDU> for chalmers@Arizona.EDU; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:24:41 -0700 (MST) Received: from localhost (rachaelp@localhost) by pavo.U.Arizona.EDU (8.8.6 (PHNE_17190)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA08077; Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:24:40 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:24:40 -0700 (MST) From: Rachael J Parkinson Subject: Re: Consciousness and attention, etc. In-reply-to: To: Joel A Martinez Cc: Lonnie A Nelson , David Chalmers , scicon@paradox.soc-sci.arizona.edu Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: RO Joel writes: > I think Rachael's suggestion sounds interesting. Ultimately, though, > I think to defend this view one would have to answer some version of Dave's question. (Namely, how coarse-grained is consciousness outside attention?) This is because this view walks a fine line between the > Dennett/Mack-Rock view and the Wolf/Hardcastle views. This question echoes Dave's concern when he asks just how coarse-grained the consciousness outside attention is. I think my view is closer to that of Wolfe and Hardcastle than to Dennett/Mack-Rock. On the 'grand illusion' view there is no consciousness outside attention. I would disagree with this. Dennett/Mack and Rock have a claim about internal representation that is similar to mine, that is, that it is limited in some way. But the difference is this: For them, internal representation is limited to what we are attending to. On my view, there is internal representation, albeit course grained (and therefore 'limited') outside of attention. So we are pointing to different things when we suggest that our internal representation is limited. This view differs from the Wolfe/Hardcastle view only in that it recognizes that consciousness outside of attention is 'fuzzy' and does not have the detail that consciousness within attention does. Joel goes on to point out: > A comment Logan made drew attention to an aspect of Rachael's > suggestion that I think is interesting and potentially problematic. Logan > has a favorable attitude towards this view b/c it separates consciousness > and attention. So, non-attentionally focused consciousness would be very > coarse grained but still globally available, in some sense. But, I think > its worth asking in what sense non-attentionally focused consciousness is > available. The change blindness studies seem to show that the information > is not available. Subjects cannot use it to help guide action, they do > not have any memory of something passing in front of thier visual field, > etc... So, in what sense is the information available? If we are going to > call the non-attentionally focused consciousness conscious should'nt we be > able to say something here? > I think this is just a version of Dave's question. (To what extent do we > notice changes in the periphery of our visual field?) B/c I am really just > trying to put some pressure on the idea that we can be conscious of what > we are not attending to. I guess I think that my view can accommodate the change blindness studies because those things that are being changed are pretty fine grained (take the lines in the road or the engine on the plane, for example). I do not think that we are aware of the engine or the lines in the road when we are not attending to them. Thus, the awareness that there is an engine is most likely not globally available. Consciousness outside attention is much more course grained than this. Recall that in my original e-mail I suggested that consciousness outside of attention may be so course grained that the most that we can say of it is that we recognize it (our fuzzy phenomenal experience) only when it is missing. Of course, it would be nice to discover that consciousness outside attention is not quite so course grained as that; perhaps we are aware of color, shape, or particularly large or 'intrusive' aspects of our inattentional conscious field. ('intrusive' like our names at a cocktail party.) It would be interesting to develop further change blindness studies to see if we are aware of particular course grained features of our unattended consciousness. Of course, I find the arguments that there may be limited or no memory outside of attention persuasive. Even if we were to find that there are no course grained features of consciousness that subjects recognize in change blindness studies, we would have to rule out the possibility that the subjects were conscious of but could not remember those course grained features. I hope these points help to clarify my view. -Rachael