CONSCIOUSNESS

3. Cognitive Sciences and Psychology 149
body movements match internal predictions of these movements. When such matches occur,
the sensory response to self-generated movements is attenuated; for example, we are not able
to tickle ourselves. Blakemore, Wolpert, and Frith (2000) found that when they artificially
delayed self-generated movements to make them seem less self-generated, sensory response
increased; that is, self-generated tickle movements felt more tickly. In a series of experiments,
I attempted to manipulate participants’ subjective sense of agency by using hypnotic
suggestions. Hypnotic subjects were given either an alien control suggestion or an anesthesia
suggestion to alter their experience of self-generated tickling movements. Individuals given
the alien control suggestion were told that they would experience their self-tickling actions as
caused by someone else, whereas individuals given the anesthesia suggestion were told that
they would not feel any sensation in the arm making self-tickling actions. Both before and
after these suggestions, participants tickled themselves and were tickled by the hypnotist. On
each occasion they rated the intensity, tickliness, pleasantness and irritation of the tickle sensations.
Three experiments were undertaken to examine the effect of hypnotic suggestions for
altered experience of agency. Experiment 1 compared high and low hypnotisable participants’
responses during hypnosis. Experiment 2 compared high hypnotisable participants? responses
in hypnotic and nonhypnotic conditions. Experiment 3 compared high hypnotisable participants
with low hypnotisable participants instructed to ‘fake’ hypnosis. I discuss the results
and implications of this task for understanding shifts in sense of agency as seen in clinical
conditions, and the application of the comparator model in hypnosis. C4
208 Is Reflexive Inner Awareness a Form of Representation? David Woodruff Smith
(Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA)
According to my long-simmering modal model of consciousness: An act of consciousness,
or conscious mental activity, characteristically includes a reflexive inner awareness of
that act, a form of awareness ascribed thus (by the underscored phrase) for a simple act of perception:
“Phenomenally in this very experience I now here see that jumping frog.” That form
of inner awareness, I’ve held, is part of the ‘modality’ of presentation in the experience, part of
the way the activity is executed, rather than part of the ‘mode’ of presentation of the object of
consciousness, the way the object is presented or represented in the experience. The question
has been raised (e.g. by Uriah Kriegel): Is that form of awareness a form of representation, i.e.
of the base mental act? If so, the modal model joins the self-representational approach to the
structure of consciousness, where inner awareness is a very specific form of same-order monitoring.
(Cf. Kriegel and Williford eds 2006.) I shall argue that inner awareness is not a form of
representation as commonly conceived (involving some descriptive content characterizing the
experience in a way that might be mistaken). On my view, inner awareness is: 1) modal - and
so not involved in representation (of some object, viz. the act); 2) reflexive - and so indicating
the act itself (‘herein’), rather than representing the act; 3) indexical - and so indicating the act
in a way that is not descriptive at all. If inner awareness in this form is counted as representing
the act albeit in this very specific way, I’m happy to call it a very special form of selfrepresentation.
However, we must not be misled. The problematic features of representation
do not then arise. For this form of inner awareness (‘in this very experience’, or ‘herein’) does
not characterize (describe) the experience at all, and so cannot misrepresent or mischaracterize
or indeed misidentify the act itself. Nor can this reflexive awareness fail to hit is target,
viz. the act itself, which ‘self-indicates’ by virtue of its occurring. Background: Higher-order
monitoring models of consciousness propose that awareness of one’s experience occurs in a
higher-order representation of the base mental activity. Some critics point to problems that
arise from the assumption that this monitoring is a form of representation. Same-order monitoring
models build the monitoring into the base mental act, where a part of the act is a form of
representation of the act. Should the reflexive inner awareness I’ve articulated be considered
a form of representation, or is that understanding misleading? C15