CONSCIOUSNESS

130 3. Cognitive Sciences and Psychology
response to sociopolitical pressures over the centuries. The aforementioned constituent features
have increased, especially during the 1800s, to accommodate growing social complexity
(larger demographic units, more social roles, steeper hierarchies, techno-scientific advances
demanding a more focused ‘mind’s eye,’ etc.). By understanding the historical emergence of
the unconscious, then, we are able to delineate the nature of consciousness. C20
175 The Implications of Considering the Mind from the Inside Out Jonathan W.
Schooler (Department of Psychology, University of California,
Santa Barbara, CA)
Historically science has treated minds like all other domains of inquiry- as material objects.
Although the objectification of the mind has led to many important scientific advances,
it has also contributed to a number of conceptual, methodological, and ontological oversights.
Conceptually, the objectification of the mind has led to the ignoring of stimulus independent
thought. While researchers have painstakingly documented the manner in which attention
shifts between external sources, far less consideration has been given to the tendency for the
mind to be drawn towards internal concerns that are independent of the current task demands.
Methodologically, the objectification of the mind has encouraged a focus on observable
behaviors and neurological measures while largely disregarding introspection. While selfreports
are sometimes used, they are rarely given the same status as other types of measures.
Ontologically, the treatment of minds as objects has led to the view that consciousness can
be understood within precisely the same explanatory constructs as material things. However,
treating the mind as equivalent to objects necessarily overlooks their unique capacity for first
person experience. This talk will use research on the internal state of mind wandering as a
springboard for illustrating the advantages of considering the mind from the inside out. When
one considers thought from a first person perspective, one of the very first things that one
notices is just how often thoughts have nothing to do with what is going on about us. Although
the internal mental state of mind wandering has long been overlooked by mainstream
researchers, recent research demonstrates that it is ubiquitous, readily amenable to rigorous
investigation, a major source of error, yet also potentially critical to planning, creativity, and
overcoming mental fatigue. Because mind wandering is inherently internal,its investigation
necessarily relies on individuals’ introspective self-reports. However, by triangulating selfreports
with behavioral and neurocognitive measures, recent research has demonstrated not
only the validity of such measures, but also the distinctive information that can be gleaned by
varying whether self-reports are spontaneously provided or experimentally elicited through
experience sampling probes. In particular, self-caught mind wandering reveals episodes that
participants have explicitly noticed where as probe caught mind wandering reveals episodes
that have eluded meta-awareness. Finally, the fact that the private thoughts associated with
mind-wandering are as real as perceptual experiences, reveals the ontological equivalency of
first person experience, and thus the need for caution in adopting a metaphysical foundation
for science that leaves no room for subjective experiences. PL12
176 The “Cognitive Unconscious,” Biofeedback and Mindfulness Connie Schrader,
Dr. Keya Maitra (Health & Wellness, UNCA, Asheville, NC)
In arguing for an embodied mind, Lakoff and Johnson (1999) emphasize the ‘Cognitive
Unconscious’ “that operates beneath the level of cognitive awareness, inaccessible to
consciousness and operating too quickly to be focused on” (10). The embodied nature of
the mental thus gets articulated by highlighting its inaccessibility to consciousness. In our
two-hour long session we want to critically evaluate the centrality of the notion of cognitive
unconscious to the development of an embodied mind. Our main aim is to propose that
the embodied nature of the mental does not necessarily require inaccessibility to consciousness.
There will be three segments to our session. In the first part we will explain the nature
and function of cognitive unconscious and outline some of the main arguments offered in its
support. In the second part we will use the methodologies of biofeedback and mindfulness
techniques to provide a critique of the arguments for the cognitive unconscious. Both these
techniques for attaining physiological shifts aim for shifts in awareness. These practices thus