Category Archives: emotion

Basic emotions: the eight stage model fits again!

ResearchBlogging.org

2nd third of 17th century
Image via Wikipedia

I had been struggling with the how many and what framework to use for defining the basic emotions and especially as I was sure that there would be eight basic emotions/emotion systems that would lie on a eight fold evolutionary path/model.

Basic emotions research is fraught with many researchers claiming different types of basic emotions and thus there is a lot of disagreement and little consensus. I’ve looked ate Ekmans models , Plutchik’s wheel and others but found all lacking. Recently I came across the basic emotion systems as neural circuits as proposed by Jaak Panksepp and could immediately see a parallel and gleam of truth there.

First a little introduction to Panksepp’s approach. He works at the primary-process level, which is to say the sub-cortical affective brain level rather than secondary process memory or emotional learning stage or tertiary level cortical brain areas where one has thoughts about feelings as the objects of study.

He has stimulated the sub-cortical as well as cortical brain areas and found that stimulating specific sub-cortical brain areas produces specific emotionl action tendencies and behavior in animals and humans and has thus identified seven brain affective systems and a separate SELF system that subsumes them all and is the basis for affective consciousness.

Without further ado, I’ll list the eight emotionless systems as I see , ranked as per my eight fold order. Its important to note that Panksepp also arrives at these circuits keeping in mind evolution as a guiding force.
1. FEAR is characterized by bodily tenseness and a shivery negatively valenced immobility, which can burst forth into a dynamic flight pattern with chaotic-projectile movements to get out of harm’s way (which may reflect recruitment of dopamine energized SEEKING urges); this system has to do with the problem of avoiding predators.
2. SEEKING is characterized by a persistent positively-valenced exploratory inquisitiveness, with energetic for-ward locomotion — approach and engagement with the world—consisting of probing into the nooks and crannies of interesting objects and events (this system is critical also for most other basic emotional responses, such as the seeking of safety when threatened); This is related to searching for food/exploring.
3. RAGE is characterized by a vigorous casting of the body at offending objects with biting and pounding of the extremities; it is a mixture of positive and negative valence; it is related to dominance hierarchies and submission and relationship with consepcifics esp with regards to territorial behavior.
4. PANIC (separation distress) is characterized by aversive crying actions, with urgent attempts at reunion, followed by weakness and a despairing body carriage as grief sets in if reunion fails; this is related to the affiliation systems especially the mother-child bonding problem.
5. LUST is characterized by an urgent and rhythmic thrusting of the body toward receptive others, and in their absence, a craving tension with both positive and negative affective features;this is related to sexuality, adolescence and shame/dis-inhibition.
6. CARE is characterized by a gentle,caressing, enveloping body dynamic accompanied by relaxed positively valenced states of the body; this is related to the intimacy needs and the need for having an intimate relationship with another.
7.PLAY is expressed in a bounding lightness of movement that has an affectively engaging dynamic poking and rhythmic quality, at times bordering on aggression. this is related to communication needs, activity and playfulness and vibrancy dimensions.
8. SELF- the systems that lies at intersection of all emotional systems and cognition and leads to affective consciousness. In my model this would be the need for integrity and might also be related to physical/social disgust.

Here is a table summarizing the neural systems, the emotions and psychopathology associated with each. the only issues I have is placement of Shame, which I think should go with lust. Similarly Hatred/contempt may go with the eight stage that of SELF.

So what do you think of Panskepp’s neurally grounded model. Do the basic emotions that he has discovered in species as low as the rat , appeal to you? On a tangential note, I had a private conversation with Bjorn Brembs on friendfeed as per which flies though may not have ’emotion proper’ related to the above emotion circuits but definitely have traits resembling these circuits and have personalities, to speak of. thus, I believe these circuits and the problems they pose are evolutionary conserved and Panksepp is on the right track.

Panksepp, J. (2000). The neuro-evolutionary cusp between emotions and cognitions: Implications for understanding consciousness and the emergence of a unified mind science Consciousness & Emotion, 1 (1), 15-54 DOI: 10.1075/ce.1.1.04pan

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am happy, will broaden-and-build; am angry, will narrow-and-save

ResearchBlogging.org

Sympathetic (red) and parasympathetic (blue) n...
Image via Wikipedia

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my conception of positive emotions  in terms of promotion focus and negative emotions in terms of prevention focus. Today I will try to relate this to the specific action-tendency theory of negative emotions and broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (as proposed by Barbara Fredrickson).

First its instructive to distinguish between negative and positive emotions. Negative emotions, like Fear, Anger, Disgust, traditionally have been conceptualized as specific action tendencies that get triggered or activated by particular type of threatening situations/stimuli. I view them as sensory driven. A stimuli impinges and is either presumed to be attacking/trespassing (thus arousing anger) or dangerous and threatening survival (thus arousing fear) or intimidating and overbearing (thus arousing sadness and disengagement)  or sickening and to be avoided (thus arousing disgust) ; in all cases a stimuli or situation acts as an immediate trigger for a specific action tendency – that of defending, fighting or fleeing, disengaging and surrendering or vomiting and keeping away.

In contrast consider positive emotions like Joy, Interest, Contentment and Love. They all happen when the environment is safe and bodily needs are met- they are not need driven, but growth oriented. They are not based around survival, but around growth.  they are non -specific thought action repertoire that is a broadened set and is not narrowly focused- rather one of the prime effects of positive emotions is to broaden attention, thought/cognition,  actions and interactions. I consider them as motor driven. they are not a response to a stimulus. Rather they are specific patterns of spontaneous action tendencies and opportunities to practice giving outlet to ones spontaneous action tendencies in a safe environmental. That is why every sort of play- be it physical rough-and-tumble or intellectual play of creativity or social play of flirting – is associated with the positive emotions.

To make my analogy more clear consider the fact that actions can be classically conditioned (and thus response to US/CS stimulus) or operant conditioned (and thus not reactive or reflexive but intrinsically driven and proactive) and while former may be more or less determined by  the external stimulus and internal associations and is deterministic in nature, the latter has spontaneous behavioral variability and initiation as its premise and has room for free will.  What I claim today is that negative emotions are reactive and thus keep you stuck in deterministic rut, while positive emotions are expansive and provide opportunities for exercise of free will in safe and playful environments by encouraging spontaneous behavioral fluctuations and felkxibility.

It has been found time and again that positive emotions are associated with a broadening and resource-building effect. Consider Joy. It encourages one to engage in acts for acts sake or encourages rough and tumble play- it builds physical resources.  Consider Interest . It encourages one to engage in exploration of a domain- be it actual physical domain or conceptual domain – it builds cognitive maps and cognitive or intellectual resources. Consider contentment. It encourages one to engage in reflection and self assessment and self integration – it builds psychological resources. consider Love (care-giving variety not romantic which is pathological and more of a negative emotion). It encourages one to engage in reciprocal interactions and to explore, act on and reflect on the other- it builds social resources.

Thus it is evident that positive emotions do help to broaden and build. That much has been proved by Barbara’s research program .  My additional claim is that negative emotions are sensory oriented and reactive while positive emotions are motor oriented, spontaneous and proactive. By signalling safe environments in which behavioral flexibility can be played around with they push us to relate to life more intrinsically.

Perhaps another analogy will be relevant.  there is a sympathetic nervous system and there is parasympathetic system. the sympathetic system helps us respond to stressful situations and readies the body. the parasympathetic restores the body and helps in regeneration of the body. So do negative emotions help us react to outside threats and make the mental-illness dimension while positive emotions help match intrinsic activity to opportunities in the environment and makes the mental health dimension.

The former (mental illness continuum)  is a zero sum game– if I win someone looses. For eg if a dominance hierarchy is there and I am on top I may feel manic while the person at bottom may feel depressed..but as long as dominance and survival and predation and germs are there the negative emotions would be there …the latter (mental health continuum)  is a win-win game.  There are more opportunities for everyone to fare better if everyone is positioned high on mental health spectrum as then doors to creativity and productivity open right then and there for all concerned. thus, I have become an advocate of the positive psychology movement and would like more efforts devoted to study of positive emotions.

Fredrickson, B. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2 (3), 300-319 DOI: 10.1037//1089-2680.2.3.300

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am Manic, will focus; Am sad, will drift

ResearchBlogging.org

Lucky Guy Happy Gal... :-)
Image by wazari via Flickr

Attention can be focused or it can be diffused. Attentional focus has been shown to be affected by mood or affect; with positive affect leading to a broadening of attentional focus;  and negative affect, in general been shown to be associated with a narrowing of focus.

However, Gable and Harmon-Jones argue that emotion or affect is not a uni-dimensional construct, but has at least two dimensions: affective valence- i.e. whether it is felt as pleasurable or dis-pleasurable; and motivational  direction- i.e. the action tendency to approach or avoid in pursuit of a preventive/promotional goal.

Much work on emotions has emphasized that they have a number of underlying dimensions. Two dimensions that have received considerable attention are affective valence, the felt pleasure or displeasure, and motivational direction, the action tendency associated with a particular emotional state—approach or withdrawal. Approach motivation refers to an urge or action tendency to go toward an object, whereas withdrawal motivation refers to an urge or action tendency to move away from an object.

They also argue that much of the extant literature on emotion-attention linkage has focused on emotional valence alone, with just one type of motivational direction, and thus has not clarified the (in)dependent role of valence and motivational direction as regards to attention.

Thus, for e.g., the finding that positive emotions lead to  broadening of attention is focused on such research as emotions of joy, contentment etc that are low in approach motivation and are emotions felt after the goal has been reached.

Similarly, the research that has found that negative emotions lead to narrowing of focus have relied on emotions such as fear, anger etc that are high in withdrawal motivation and are pre-goal.

I believe, it is important to step back a little here and go back to our conception of happiness-ennui (mental well-being) continuum and sadness-mania (mental illness) continuum. Another way to conceptualize them is to see sadness having negative valence and low withdrawal motivation – it is passive; mania as having positive valence and high approach motivation- mania is characterized by immense desire for a goal and is pre -goal. Happiness is post goal emotion and is characterized by positive valence and low approach motivation- you have already reached the goal and do not need to exert much efforts in goal directed activity; ennui/boredom/listlessness is negative in valence and has high withdrawal motivation- it is pre-goal- a search for a worthwhile goal.

Another way to make the difference stark is employ the terminology of Berridge et al: happiness is related to liking and the opioid system; while mania is related to wanting and the dopamine system.  Depression/sadness  is related to disliking /feeling pain while ennui/boredom is related to dreading the outcome/feeling anxious (nothing to do and hence life is useless/meaningless!..anxiety but existential anxiety). Berridghe et al have shown that wanting/liking and dreading/disliking differ and have different neural and neurochemichal correlates.

To become a little philosophical, the wanting/disliking  mental illness continuum leading to mania or depression in extremes is to be avoided (thus the dictum of all religions to shun desire/ be stoic) while the happiness-ennui/boredom/existential anxiety system is more preferable where you focus on liking positive outcomes and dreading negative/neutral ones. While the former, to paraphrase Freud,  is the hysterical misery at worst, the latter is common unhappiness at worst.

But anyway that was long detour. Lets get back to the studies by Gable et al.

In the first study, the authors showed that motivational direction was relevant and was the reason behind the positivity-broadening of attentional focus effect. they showed that positive emotions lead to broadening of attention only in low approach motivation condition; but when the positive emotion had high approach motivation (emotions like desire. engagement etc), the positive affect lead to narrowing of focus.

Now a brief detour into methodology: the attentional focus is usually measured using local-global tasks whereby it is determined whether one is paying attention to global features or local features of an ambiguous/mixed stimuli. For eg, the most popular of these consists of a global big H made up of smaller (say 5 in number) F’s and then determining whether the subject notices the global H or the local F. Details can be seen in the Gable papers which are open access.

Now the authors found robust support for their hypothesis that it is the motivational direction and not affective valence that determines the attentional focus. They also relate it to adaptivity.

Positive affects, particularly those low in approach motivation, suggest a comfortable, stable environment and allow for a broadening of attention and cognition, which may serve adaptive functions (Carver, 2003; Fredrickson, 2001). However, broadening does not occur when positive affects are high in approach motivation. Such positive affects often encourage specific action tendencies, such as tenacious goal pursuit, and an associated reduction in attentional breadth. This reduced attentional breadth may prove adaptive, as it assists in obtaining goals.

They also extend these finding to negative affects and depression etc and I can easily relate them to earlier work I have covered regarding the danger or safety of environment and promotional/ preventive focus:

Together with past research, the present research supports the idea that low- and high-approach-motivated positive affect produce opposite effects on attentional breadth. It is possible that the intensity of withdrawal motivation exerts similar attentional effects; that is, low-withdrawal-motivated negative affect may cause broadening, whereas high-withdrawal-motivated negative affect may cause reduction in breadth. Indeed, such an interpretation would fit with past research. For example, individuals with depression, a low-intensity motivation, are more creative than nondepressed individuals (Andreasen, 1987) and show broadening of attention and memory (von Hecker & Meiser, 2005). In the case of low-motivated negative affects such as sadness and depression, “a more open, unfocused, unselective, low-effort mode of attention would prove not deficient but, on the contrary, beneficial” (von Hecker & Meiser, 2005, p. 456), as one disengages from a terminally blocked goal and becomes open to new possibilities (Klinger, 1975). The past research that found negative affect caused decreased attentional breadth may have evoked negative affective states that were high in withdrawal motivation (e.g., fear; Gasper & Clore, 2002).

This brings me to their current paper , aptly titled , The Blues Broaden, but the Nasty Narrows, that found exactly the effect hypothesized above that sadness/depressive mood was related to broadening of attention, while disgust, a negative emotion with high withdrawal motivation was related to narrowing of focus. they also found that the effect of negative emotion was mediated by arousal which could stand as a proxy for motivational direction.

These two experiments revealed that the relationship between negative affect and attentional precedence is more complex than commonly thought. In line with past theory and evidence, Experiment 2 demonstrated that negative affect caused a narrowing of attention. However, this narrowing occurred only when negative affect was high in motivational intensity. When negative affect was low in motivational intensity, in Experiment 1, it caused a broadening of attention. These results are consistent with the idea that the effect of emotion on local/global precedence is not due to negative versus positive affect, but is instead due to motivational intensity. Positive and negative affects of low motivational intensity broaden attention, whereas positive and negative affects of high motivational intensity narrow attention.

To me this is sufficient, clinching and converging proof of the theories I have been trying to develop with regards to emotions (specifically mania, depression, happiness and despair) and make clear that there are at least two dimensions to happiness/sadness and mental well being/illness constructs. Perhaps if we start liking what we have and stop coveting or wanting more, we have a philosophical, religious, as well as now a psychological, blueprint for how to lead the good life and how to avoid a living hell.

Gable, P., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2010). The Blues Broaden, but the Nasty Narrows: Attentional Consequences of Negative Affects Low and High in Motivational Intensity Psychological Science, 21 (2), 211-215 DOI: 10.1177/0956797609359622
Gable, P., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2008). Approach-Motivated Positive Affect Reduces Breadth of Attention Psychological Science, 19 (5), 476-482 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02112.x

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Happiness opposed to despair/ennui; sadness to anger/irritability

ResearchBlogging.org

Abraham Maslow photograph
Image via Wikipedia

We normally view happiness and sadness to be opposites on a single continuum, but I propose that it is time to change the textbooks and view happiness as opposed to ennui/despair and sadness as opposed to anger/irritability when it comes to basic opponent affects.

But before we go down that path first a detour.

I recently read Flourishing: edited by Keyes & Haidt , and the last article by Keyes caught my attention. I looked up a few more articles by Keyes and found this one that again elaborates on the theory put forward in the book chapter.

The point Keyes wants to make is that mental illness and mental health are two different things and are relatively independent of each other. Traditionally mental health has been conceptualized as the absence of mental illness, but Keyes says that our intuitions are incorrect here and mental health is another, parallel continuum on which people can differ.

Throughout human history, there have been three conceptions of health.The pathogenic approach is the first, most historically dominant vision, derived from the Greek word pathos, meaning suffering or an emotion evoking sympathy. The pathogenic approach views health as the absence of disability, disease, and premature death. The second approach is the salutogenic approach, which can be found in early Greek writings and was popularized by Antonovsky (1979) and humanistic scholarship (e.g., Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow). Derived from the word salus, meaning health, the salutogenic approach views health as the presence of positive states of human capacities and functioning in thinking, feeling, and behavior (Stru¨mpfer, 1995). The third approach is the complete state model, which derives from the ancient word for health as being hale, meaning whole and strong. This approach is exemplified in the World Health Organization’s (1948) definition of overall health as a complete state, consisting of the presence of a positive state of human capacities and functioning as well as the absence of disease or infirmity. By subsuming the pathogenic and salutogenic paradigms, the whole states approach is, in my opinion, the only paradigm that can achieve true population health.

Thus when we talk of whole states mental health we are basically talking about two related things- a mental illness or disability dimension and a flourishing or mental health dimension. Keyes et al have performed confirmatory factor analysis on measure used to measure mental health and illness and found that the data is best explained by two latent factors-one related to flourishing and the other to illness.

This is how they define mental health or flourishing dimension.

Until recently, mental health remained undefined, unmeasured, and therefore unrecognized at the level of governments and nongovernmental organizations. In 1999, the Surgeon General, then David Satcher, conceived of mental health as “a state of successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with people, and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity” (U.S. Public Health Service, 1999, p. 4). In 2004, the World Health Organization published a historic first report on mental health promotion, conceptualizing mental health as not merely the absence of mental illness but the presence of “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (World Health Organization, 2004, p. 12).

Keyes comes up with 13 symptoms of mental health and these include Positive emotions (i.e., emotional well-being) including positive affect and avowed quality of life; Positive psychological functioning (i.e., psychological well-being) consisting of self-acceptance, positive relations with others, personal growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, and autonomy (see Keyes & Ryff, 1999); and Positive social functioning (i.e., social well-being) consisting of social coherence, social actualization, social integration, social acceptance, and social contribution. In DSM style they propose that individuals exhibit some minimum symptoms to classify as flourishing and those with very low scores be classified as languishing.

To be diagnosed as flourishing in life, individuals must exhibit high levels on at least one measure of hedonic well-being and high levels on at least six measures of positive functioning. Individuals who exhibit low levels on at least one measure of hedonic well-being and low levels on at least six measures of positive functioning are diagnosed as languishing in life. Adults who are moderately mentally healthy do not fit the criteria for either flourishing or languishing in life.

Keyes then goes on to show the costs of languishing and not focusing on mental health and why a narrow focus on cure/prevention of mental illness is detrimental, but that is beside the point as to today’s topic. what is most important take way for today is that there are two separate factors of mental health and mental illness.

This brings us back to the affects- happiness, sadness, ennui/despair and anger/irritability. Consider for a moment depression. It is an illness characterized by sad mood and anhedonia etc. Consider its counterpart on the illness spectrum. while a normal person not having depression may seem the counterpart, the real counterpart is mania which often has a angry/irritable mood (alongside euphoria) associated with it. Also depression is characterized as a reaction to losses/continuous exposure to stresses that makes goals out of reach/unachievable. Here the focus is preventive in nature- the state does not deteriorate further and goals do not remain unmet. However, depression or sad mood is also an avoidance reaction. One becomes withdrawn from the situation and does not fight the stress, but flights from the stress by withdrawing in a cocoon. The loss of appetite and more sleep can be seen as behavioral counterparts of withdrawing or exhibiting a flight response to stress.

As opposed to this, mania can be seen behaviorally as an active approach state in which one works actively towards the things required to overcome the loss of valued entity/life goal. Again, I propose that mania is a reaction to a situation similar to depression – when something is lost/ is under threat of losing- but this time , under stress, one fights and not flights- thus one becomes energized to right the wrong and may become angry/ irritable if the efforts to retain goals/ valued entities are frustrated by external world. It is important that both mania and depression are on the illness scale of functioning/ mental health and are a result of life trauma/ stress/ perceived/ real/ threat of loss of loved object/person. Thus the focus is preventive and the state is of scarcity.

Contrast this to a state of abundance when ones (life) goals have been met/ are within reach.// This apparent positive state of affairs may again give rise to different emotions/ behavioral manifestations depending on whether one has approach or avoidance dominant reaction. If one approaches the more free time available after goal accomplishment as a boon that can be used to home ones hobbies/find other meaning in life/ build relationships etc and not as a threat ( free time can be a threat) then one experiences positive emotion of happiness and behaviorally flourishes.

In contrast consider a similar person who has achieved everything in life – (a good job, wife, kids etc ) , but given the fact that one is living in abundance is frightened or flights from the free time that has been made available. that person will be listless, will exhibit ennui or boredom and may even exhibit despair as he finds life meaningless. Thus behaviorally he would languish.

Thus, I rest my case that happiness is opposed to ennui/despair while sadness is opposed to anger/irritability and while happiness is a measure of flourishing; sadness is a measure of illness. One can definitely conduct experiments , perform factor analysis to confirm, that indeed happiness and sadness is not a unitary construct, but are two separate but related dimensions. I would love to hear your comments.

Keyes, C. (2007). Promoting and protecting mental health as flourishing: A complementary strategy for improving national mental health. American Psychologist, 62 (2), 95-108 DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.62.2.95

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am happy, will be paranoid/ gullible; am sad, will be realistic

ResearchBlogging.org

The cartoon above (New Physiognomy, New York, ...
Image via Wikipedia

Happiness may lead to mood-congruent effects of increasing trust(a positive emotion itself) in interpersonal situations;  an alternative theory is that happiness leads to top-down processing , thus relying more on activated schema , stereotypes etc and thus leading to more trust when trust schema or cues are salient and distrust when untrustworthy schema / cues are active.

As per the mood-congruent theory of effect of happiness, surmised that happy people would be more trusting and there would be a main effect of happiness manipulation on trust in experimental settings.  As per the assimilation-accommodation theory, viz that happiness leads to assimilation or use of existing constructs (stereotype./ schema etc) while sadness leads to accommodation or bottom-up processing whereby new constructs may be created, the conjecture is that happy people will show trust in trust situations and distrust in distrust situations and thus there would be an interaction effect in 2 (happiness/ neutral mood) x 2 (trust/distrust situation, stereotype or cue) study design.

These above two are competing hypothesis that make measurable and clearly different and distinguishable predictions and can be easily experimentally verified.

Robert Lount, Jr. set out to investigate precisely this piece of puzzle and his data supported the thesis that there is an interaction effect of mood on trust cues and thus happy people are more gullible  when trust cues/stereotypes are active; and also more paranoid or distrusting when distrust cues/ schema are active.

He performed a total of 5 different experiments to cement his thesis.

  • The first experiment relied on film clips to induce mood and dictator game to measure trust. Trustworthiness of the other party was manipulated by interpersonal vs inter group situation. As per a theoretical framework, by default in interpersonal interactions (say  trust games)  the other individuals believed to be trustworthy. In contrast in an inter-group interaction, in-group vs out-group psychology comes into play and the other group as a whole is believed to be inherently untrustworthy.  thus, in the first experiment they used interpersonal or inter-group conditions to manipulate trustworthiness cues and found the interaction effect of happiness and trust cues as hypothesized.
  • The second experiment was carried out to ascertain that it is indeed distrust in inter-group condition that is in play and leads to happy people showing distrust in distrust salient conditions. The paradigm used was modified prisoners dilemma in this case.
  • The third experiment did not use ingroup-outgroup factors but instead provided explicit information about the trustworthiness of a person and then measured the effect of mood on trust using the dictator game and found the same interaction effect of mood and trust cues as opposed to a direct main effect of affect on trust.

  • The fourth experiment used subtle implicit measures of trustworthiness/ untrustworthiness by utilizing computer generated facial features and used explicit measures of trust like rating the person as trustworthy when subjects mood had been manipulated. Again the interaction effect was observed.
  • The fifth and final experiment was performed to clarify that it is indeed the underlying activation of schema/ stereotype that is in play when happy people become gullible/ paranoid in presence of cues; and this was done by showing that normal people too , under cognitive load conditions, when they are known to rely on stereotypes/ schema, show the same interaction effects on trust.

Here are the conclusions from the study:

The results in this article are consistent with work demonstrating that a positive mood increases reliance upon stereotypes (Bless, Schwarz, & Wieland, 1996; Bodenhausen et al., 1994; Park & Banaji, 2000) and scripts in interdependent situations (Hertel et al., 2000). More pointedly, the findings from all five experiments supported the predictions of the accommodation–assimilation model (see Bless & Fiedler, 2006; Fiedler, 2001b, for reviews) over mood-congruency models. This leads to a fairly strong conclusion that the relationship between positive mood and trust depends, in large part, on available schemas, cues, and stereotypes.

To me the evidence is as good as it needs to be. It also fits in my broader context of seeing good/happy mood  as a precursor to mania whereby happiness leads to use of stereotypes/schema , leads to becoming more gullible/ paranoid / leading to psychoses.  although the present study did not had anything to say about sad mood (the contrast was with neutral mood) it is not unreasonable to extrapolate and claim that sad people are more realistic and depend on behavior of the other party rather than stereotypes to ascertain in whom to place their trust. this too fits in the broader scheme of things where sad mood is  a precursor to depression which has been shown to make people more realistic. If there is an upside to depression, the only one may be that it makes us more realistic/ rational.

Lount, R. (2010). The impact of positive mood on trust in interpersonal and intergroup interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 (3), 420-433 DOI: 10.1037/a0017344

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am Happy, will talk more and deep; am Sad, will make small talk

ResearchBlogging.org

NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 22: Author Lucy Danziger,...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Happiness and sadness have different effects on verbal behavior. Happiness may either lead to shallow happy-go-lucky, small talk moments or more profound and deep interactions that are meaningful and fulfilling. Sadness similarly may facilitate deep philosophical ruminations and conversations or lead to shallow and trivial small talk. Which of these is the actual scenario is not intuitive, but new research by Mehl et al has come to our rescue and provides a definitive answer.

Meh et al used the Electronically activated recorder (EAR) which is a device that unobtrusively records 30 s snippets of conversation at random times of the day as the subjects as they go about their daily life. As such it is a better measure than experience sampling method (ESM) which is intrusive and relies on self reports.

The coders than analyzed and coded the snippets of conversations as captured using EAR into small talk versus substantive conversations. Also the number of time spent in conversations and socially versus time spent alone was also calculated for the subjects.

The subjects filled self-report satisfaction with life survey as well as other happiness measures which were used to calculate the well being/happiness index for the subjects.

The results were clear. Happy people spent more time talking to others in social settings versus spending time alone. further, happy people spent much more time in substantive conversations than in making samll talk. this was revers in the case of sad people.

However, the authors caution, and I believe it is a reasonable rider. that this study is correlational and does not elucidate the direction of causality. It may be the case that happy people have more substantive conversations to make or t may be the case that just as self-disclosure leads to intimacy having deep and meaningful conversations leads to happiness.

The full text is available for free online and is written in a very lucid manner and I recommend reading it in full. I am including a snippet to whet the appetite.

Together, the present findings demonstrate that the happy life is social rather than solitary, and conversationally deep rather than superficial. What makes these findings especially compelling is the lack of method overlap between the well-being measures (self- and informant reports) and the interaction measures (direct observation). Also, the replication of findings across measures of well-being and across weekday and weekend behavior is encouraging.
Naturally, our correlational findings are causally ambiguous. On the one hand, well-being may be causally antecedent to having substantive interactions; happy people may be “social attractors” who facilitate deep social encounters (Lucas & Dyrenforth, 2006). On the other hand, deep conversations may actually make people happier. Just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in the interaction partners. Therefore, our results raise the interesting possibility that happiness can be increased by facilitating substantive conversations (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006). Future research should examine this possibility experimentally.
Remarking on Socrates’ dictum that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” Dennett (1984) wrote, “The overly examined life is nothing to write home about either” (p. 87). Although we hesitate to enter such delicate philosophical disputes, our findings suggest that people find their lives more worth living when examined?at least when examined together.

Indeed, a life examined together and being more social/ loquacious and deep
is definitely more happy and worth living.

Mehl, M., Vazire, S., Holleran, S., & Clark, C. (2010). Eavesdropping on Happiness: Well-Being Is Related to Having Less Small Talk and More Substantive Conversations Psychological Science DOI: 10.1177/0956797610362675

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am happy, will be selfish; Am sad, will be fair. Oh Really?!?

Belisaire demandant l'aumone Jacques-Louis de ...
Image via Wikipedia

ResearchBlogging.org
Many a times, researchers have their own personal agendas and its very human to fall in to the temptation to interpret study results or spin them to suit ones long term subject matter and expertise.  This is a trap in which Joe Forgas et al fall when they report in JESP that happy people are selfish and sad people are fair. They have a long research interest that goes aka sadness is beneficial for you and every result has to fit in that model.

In this latest study they use the behavior in the dictator game as a proxy for selfish behavior. the classical dictator game consist of giving a  sum of money to a person and asking them to divide it between themselves and another human being any way they deem fit. If an agent is rational , he should be purely selfish (there are assumed to be no future/past interactions and no reputations to maintain/ cultivate) . As is the normal finding, humans normally give upto 50 % of their share to another person in the dictator game although there are no obligations. As such , dictator game is indeed a good measure of internal selfishness of a person.

What Joe et al do is to induce good(happy)/bad(sad) mood  in their subjects and then ask them to play a version of the dictator game.  So far so good. However in their version of the dictator game , one is not given a sum of money to divide amongst oneself and someone else; but they are given 10 raffle tickets- each raffle ticket increasing the odds of winning a lottery of 20 $. Now ,here is where I think they have blundered an confounded the results. they have introduced odds and probability thinking in the scene and everyone knows that a normal person prefers a sure sum of money (10 $) over a chance of winning equivalent sum  (50 % chance of 0$ and 50  % chance of 20 $). Both utilities are mathematically equivalent but we are all normally risk-averse and prefer the assured sum. However, and this a big however, happy people are more risk prone and may prefer a chance much more than an assured sum. In sad mood things would be reverse.

Its not as if Joe et al are not aware of the happiness-risk proneness link, but they somehow ignore it and let it confound the results. To quote form the paper:

Happy mood may also function as a motivational resource (Trope, Ferguson, & Raghunanthan, 2001), allowing happy individuals to accept greater risks. These findings suggest that happy mood should promote a more confident, selfish allocation strategy, while negative mood should trigger more cautious, fair allocation.

Readers will immediately see where I am coming from. I am a huge fan of seeing happiness/ sadness in terms of environmental risk and safety and as motivational focus- promotion versus prevention focus. It is thus pretty obvious to me that a (or say 10) raffle ticket (a chance of winning 20 $) does not have the same value for a sad person a sit has for a happy person who is more in a risk -prone frame of mind. thus, it seems obvious that a happy person will adhere more utility to the raffle tickets and may not that readily part with them; while a person in a sad mood may think that chancy bit of paper as worthless and be more willing to share it with others. I challenge Joe et al to repeat the experiment with real money and not waffle tickets and then draw any conclusions.

Whats more in the first experiment (described above) the selfish tag on happy people was due to the fact that they did not share that much with out-groups. If out-groups (strangers ) were not present perhaps the results would not have been significant based on ingroup data alone. If, somehow, being sad broadens your vistas and makes you treat outgroups (strangers) the same as ingroups, then this would again confound the result and invalidate the conclusions reached by the authors. Of course this thesis that being sad ,makes you more open to strangers flies in face of the study I covered yesterday that sad people prefer familiarity;  but it is something to think about and design experiments to rule out.

Experiment 2 suffers from the same methodical flows. Experiment 3 tried to prove that when social expectations about being fair were relaxed, then happy people gave free rein to their selfishness and became selfish, while sad people remained fair and followed external norms of fairness. This is purportedly to relate it to the internal focus of selfish people and external focus of sad people and fit in a larger framework, but again it fails to convince me. At the outset let me clarify that I do adhere to happy people have internal focus while sad people are more driven by external norms. However the experiment they did supports my thesis sand not theirs.

In experiment 3, they manipulated the perceived social norm of fairness by revealing to subjects the behaviour of some hypothetical earlier participants in the dictator game. some were in the ‘fairness is the norm’ condition (more fair splits be earlier hypothetical participants), others were in the ‘fairness is not the norm’ condition- I like to call this ‘unfairness is the norm’ condition.

Now there are two caveats to this. First not everyone decides whether to act fairly or not based on existing norms. As per Kohlebrg’s or other modern developmental theories one sense of morality in an earlier stage may be driven by norms , but at later stages is determined by internal values and internalized norms. thus it is wrong to apriori believe that if people don’t act selfish it is because of pressure of the social norm of fairness. This is the position that study authors take and this is not necessarily true. Second, even if one grants that one works under social norms, it is false to believe that the social norm is fairness;  with the myriad misinterpretations of darwins theory selfishness has become the de facto social norm. Thus, one can as legitimately claim that selfishness is the existing norm that goes undermined by manipulations of experiment 3 and when primed with fair prior dictator behavior, gives free rein to mood effects to take place; while in the second condition where selfishness norm is reaffirmed there are no mood effects.

This hair splitting is important because in the third experiment they did not find a main effect of mood/ prior fairness norm  on dictator offerings, rather there was an interaction between the mood and prior priming. They found that when prior exposed to social norm of fairness there was no difference in happy and sad condition; the difference was there only in ‘selfishness is norm’ condition. One can thus, also interpret these findings as ‘selfishness is norm’ – in that selfishness norm when chances are involved happy people make more risky choices than sad people; however when the norm of selfishness is undermined, internal values like being fair (yes there is considerable literature that being fair is more natural and internally driven than being selfish)  takes hold and make seven happy people who value the raffle tickets a lot to become more fair and altruistic and share their tickets to the same extent as sad people do normally.

Its not as if they haven’t considered the dilemma of why the norm and undermining of it should be one way only. To quote:

Why did sad people not simply follow the norm – fairness or selfishness – and happy people follow their own internal state (i.e., ignore the norm and act selfishly) in this study? It is likely that information provided about the selfish behavior of others, being socially undesirable, could not invoke an acceptable, alternative shared social norm, and so served merely to undermine the powerful norm of fairness, allowing full scope for mood effects to occur. In contrast, information about the socially desirable, fair behavior by others served to reinforce a powerful existing social norm and so constrained mood effects, as found here.

So in summation, I am not convinced, I still believe the results they got are due to the happiness as increasing risk proneness effct. But I agree broadly with their thesis that sadness also has adaptive value and happiness should not be seen as all rosy and sadness all bad. The bad effect of extremes of euphoria/ mania are well known, to complement lets hear what they have to say of the good effect of sadness. I’ll like to end with their own quotes on this matter.

Interestingly, our results further challenge the common assumption in much of applied, organisational, clinical and health psychology that positive affect has universally desirable social consequences. Together with other recent experimental studies, our findings confirm that negative affect often produces adaptive and more socially sensitive outcomes. For example, negative moods can improve the detection of deception (Forgas & East, 2008), reduce judgmental errors (Forgas, 1998), improve eyewitness accuracy (Forgas, Vargas, & Laham, 2005), and improve interpersonal communication strategies (Forgas, 2007). The present experiments confirm this pattern by demonstrating that mild negative moods also increase fairness and sensitivity to the needs of others.

Tan, H., & Forgas, J. (2010). When happiness makes us selfish, but sadness makes us fair: Affective influences on interpersonal strategies in the dictator game Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.01.007

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Am happy, will seek novelty; am sad, will stick with familiar

ResearchBlogging.org

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 07: A man exercises on t...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I have earlier written about the entrepreneurial roller-coaster and how when entrepreneurs are in a happy mood, they focus on long-term vision related creativity; while when they are in negative mood they focus on the task at hand. I had also tried to relate this to prevention and promotion focus and weave it in the narrative of preventive focus as depressive and promotion focus as being manic in nature.

Another bit of research extends the thesis and adds to our knowledge base. This new article by Winkielman et al suggest that people in sad mood tend to value familiarity whereas those in a happy mood are more open and welcoming of novelty.

Here is the abstract of the study:

People often prefer familiar stimuli, presumably because familiarity signals safety. This preference can occur with merely repeated old stimuli, but it is most robust with new but highly familiar rototypes of a known category (beauty-in-averageness effect). However, is familiarity always warm? Tuning accounts of mood hold that positive mood signals a safe environment, whereas negative mood signals an unsafe environment. Thus, the value of familiarity should depend on mood. We show that compared with a sad mood, a happy mood eliminates the preference for familiar stimuli, as shown in measures of self-reported liking and physiological measures of affect (electromyographic indicator of spontaneous smiling). The basic effect of exposure on preference and its modulation by mood were most robust for prototypes (category averages). All this occurs even though prototypes might be more familiar in a happy mood. We conclude that mood changes the hedonic implications of familiarity cues.

The authors reasoning is as follows:

Happy or sad mood signal the safety of the environment.

Much psychological research points out that one signal of environmental safety or danger is an individual’s mood (e.g., Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994; Schwarz, 2002). Bad mood signals a problem, tuning individuals toward safety concerns, whereas good mood signals that an environment is benign. Tuning accounts assume that mood adjusts cognitive and affective reactions so that they best serve the individual in the specific context.

In a safe environment, one can experiment or value novelty. In an unsafe environmental it makes sense to stick to tried and proven things.

After all, familiarity is only a heuristic cue to safety. Thus, as with any heuristic cue, its validity and hedonic meaning vary by context (Hertwig, Herzog, Schooler, & Reimer, 2008). Specifically, the familiarity-positivity link should depend on whether individuals are tuned toward safety concerns. Familiarity should be valued in an unsafe environment, but less so in a benign environment (e.g., Bornstein, 1989). Analogously, in a strange city a familiar face elicits a warm glow, whereas locally the same face prompts a yawn. Numerous studies (and parents) have observed that in unsafe environments infants are neophobic, but in safe settings, they are less so (Shore, 1994). Similarly, in multiple species, stress increases neophobia, whereas comfort reduces it.

Thus they hypothesize that sad mood should lead to mare liking for familiarity while happy mood should lead to novelty preference. They do some clever experimentation and get exactly the same result.

To me this is extension of promotion focus is expansive, is happy, is creative and long-term, and is novelty preferring versus prevention focus is restrictive, is sad, is focused on the task at hand, and is familiarity preferring. In other words people in safe environments having promotion focus are manic while those in unsafe environments and having prevention focus are depressive.

Another finding that struck out from the current paper was that the (false) memory for prototype was increased in positive mood condition. This is congruent with the fact that the promotion focus / mania condition has a more narrative focus that tries to weave a narrative around things and remembers a gist rather than is accuracy based and tries to recall the exact events. thus, I believe the risk of delusions and hallucinations magnifies as one goes deep into promotion focus / mania and starts weaving narratives and having false prototypical memories of events/happenings.

de Vries, M., Holland, R., Chenier, T., Starr, M., & Winkielman, P. (2010). Happiness Cools the Warm Glow of Familiarity: Psychophysiological Evidence That Mood Modulates the Familiarity-Affect Link Psychological Science DOI: 10.1177/0956797609359878

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Major conscious and unconscious processes in the brain: part 5: Physical substrates of A-cosnciousness

This is the fifth post in my ongoing series on major conscious and unconscious processes in the brain. For earlier parts, click here.

Today , I would like to point to  a few physical models and theories of consciousness that have been proposed that show that consciousness still resides in the brain, although the neural/ supportive processes may be more esoteric. 

I should forewarn before hand that all the theories involve advanced understanding of brains/ physics/ biochemistry etc and that I do not feel qualified enough to understand/ explain all the different theories in their entirety (or even have a surface understanding of them) ; yet , I believe that there are important underlying patterns and that applying the eight stage model to these approaches will only help us further understand and predict and search in the right directions. The style of this post is similar to the part 3 post on robot minds that delineated the different physical approaches that are used to implement intelligence/ brains in machines.

With that as a background, let us look at the major theoretical approaches to locate consciousness and define its underlying substrates. I could find six different physical hypothesis about consciousness on the Wikipedia page:

  1. * Orch-OR theory
  2. * Electromagnetic theories of consciousness
  3. * Holonomic brain theory
  4. * Quantum mind
  5. * Space-time theories of consciousness
  6. * Simulated Reality

Now let me briefly introduce each of the theories and where they seem to have been most successful; again I believe that though this time visually-normal people are perceiving the elephant, yet they are hooked on to its different aspects and need to bind their perspectives together to arrive at the real nature of the elephant.

1. Orch-OR theory:

The Orch OR theory combines Penrose’s hypothesis with respect to the Gödel theorem with Hameroff’s hypothesis with respect to microtubules. Together, Penrose and Hameroff have proposed that when condensates in the brain undergo an objective reduction of their wave function, that collapse connects to non-computational decision taking/experience embedded in the geometry of fundamental spacetime.
The theory further proposes that the microtubules both influence and are influenced by the conventional activity at the synapses between neurons. The Orch in Orch OR stands for orchestrated to give the full name of the theory Orchestrated Objective Reduction. Orchestration refers to the hypothetical process by which connective proteins, known as microtubule associated proteins (MAPs) influence or orchestrate the quantum processing of the microtubules.
Hameroff has proposed that condensates in microtubules in one neuron can link with other neurons via gap junctions[6]. In addition to the synaptic connections between brain cells, gap junctions are a different category of connections, where the gap between the cells is sufficiently small for quantum objects to cross it by means of a process known as quantum tunnelling. Hameroff proposes that this tunnelling allows a quantum object, such as the Bose-Einstein condensates mentioned above, to cross into other neurons, and thus extend across a large area of the brain as a single quantum object.
He further postulates that the action of this large-scale quantum feature is the source of the gamma (40 Hz) synchronisation observed in the brain, and sometimes viewed as a correlate of consciousness [7]. In support of the much more limited theory that gap junctions are related to the gamma oscillation, Hameroff quotes a number of studies from recent year.
From the point of view of consciousness theory, an essential feature of Penrose’s objective reduction is that the choice of states when objective reduction occurs is selected neither randomly, as are choices following measurement or decoherence, nor completely algorithmically. Rather, states are proposed to be selected by a ‘non-computable’ influence embedded in the fundamental level of spacetime geometry at the Planck scale.
Penrose claimed that such information is Platonic, representing pure mathematical truth, aesthetic and ethical values. More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato had proposed such pure values and forms, but in an abstract realm. Penrose placed the Platonic realm at the Planck scale. This relates to Penrose’s ideas concerning the three worlds: physical, mental, and the Platonic mathematical world. In his theory, the physical world can be seen as the external reality, the mental world as information processing in the brain and the Platonic world as the encryption, measurement, or geometry of fundamental spacetime that is claimed to support non-computational understanding.

To me it seems that Orch OR theory is more suitable for forming platonic representations of objects – that is invariant/ideal perception of an object. This I would relate to the Perceptual aspect of A-consciousness.

2. Electromagnetic theories of consciousness

The electromagnetic field theory of consciousness is a theory that says the electromagnetic field generated by the brain (measurable by ECoG) is the actual carrier of conscious experience.
The starting point for these theories is the fact that every time a neuron fires to generate an action potential and a postsynaptic potential in the next neuron down the line, it also generates a disturbance to the surrounding electromagnetic (EM) field. Information coded in neuron firing patterns is therefore reflected into the brain’s EM field. Locating consciousness in the brain’s EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered throughout the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (sometimes called the binding problem): the information is unified in the EM field. In this way EM field consciousness can be considered to be ‘joined-up information’.
However their generation by synchronous firing is not the only important characteristic of conscious electromagnetic fields — in Pockett’s original theory, spatial pattern is the defining feature of a conscious (as opposed to a non-conscious) field.
In McFadden’s cemi field theory, the brain’s global EM field modifies the electric charges across neural membranes and thereby influences the probability that particular neurons will fire, providing a feed-back loop that drives free will.

To me, the EM filed theories seem to be right on track regarding the fact that the EM filed itself may modify / affect the probabilities of firing of individual neurons and thus lead to free will or sense of agency by in some sense causing some neurons to fire over others. I believe we can model the agency aspect of A-consciousness and find neural substrates of the same in brain, using this approach.

3. Holonomic brain theory:

The holonomic brain theory, originated by psychologist Karl Pribram and initially developed in collaboration with physicist David Bohm, is a model for human cognition that is drastically different from conventionally accepted ideas: Pribram and Bohm posit a model of cognitive function as being guided by a matrix of neurological wave interference patterns situated temporally between holographic Gestalt perception and discrete, affective, quantum vectors derived from reward anticipation potentials.
Pribram was originally struck by the similarity of the hologram idea and Bohm’s idea of the implicate order in physics, and contacted him for collaboration. In particular, the fact that information about an image point is distributed throughout the hologram, such that each piece of the hologram contains some information about the entire image, seemed suggestive to Pribram about how the brain could encode memories.
According to Pribram, the tuning of wave frequency in cells of the primary visual cortex plays a role in visual imaging, while such tuning in the auditory system has been well established for decades[citation needed]. Pribram and colleagues also assert that similar tuning occurs in the somatosensory cortex.
Pribram distinguishes between propagative nerve impulses on the one hand, and slow potentials (hyperpolarizations, steep polarizations) that are essentially static. At this temporal interface, he indicates, the wave interferences form holographic patterns.

To me, the holnomic approach seems to be the phenomenon lying between gestalt perception and quantum vectors derived from reward-anticipation potentials or in simple English between the perception and agency components of A-consciousness. this is the Memory aspect of A-consciousness. The use of hologram used to store information as a model, the use of slow waves that are tuned to carry information, the use of this model to explain memory formation (including hyperpolarization etc) all point to the fact that this approach will be most successful in explaining the autobiographical memory that is assited wuith A-cosnciousness.

4. Quantum Mind:

The quantum mind hypothesis proposes that classical mechanics cannot fully explain consciousness and suggests that quantum mechanical phenomena such as quantum entanglement and superposition may play an important part in the brain’s function and could form the basis of an explanation of consciousness.
Recent papers by physicist, Gustav Bernroider, have indicated that he thinks that Bohm’s implicate-explicate structure can account for the relationship between neural processes and consciousness[7]. In a paper published in 2005 Bernroider elaborated his proposals for the physical basis of this process[8]. The main thrust of his paper was the argument that quantum coherence may be sustained in ion channels for long enough to be relevant for neural processes and the channels could be entangled with surrounding lipids and proteins and with other channels in the same membrane. Ion channels regulate the electrical potential across the axon membrane and thus play a central role in the brain’s information processing.
Bernroider uses this recently revealed structure to speculate about the possibility of quantum coherence in the ion channels. Bernroider and co-author Sisir Roy’s calculations suggested to them that the behaviour of the ions in the K channel could only be understood at the quantum level. Taking this as their starting point, they then ask whether the structure of the ion channel can be related to logic states. Further calculations lead them to suggest that the K+ ions and the oxygen atoms of the binding pockets are two quantum-entangled sub-systems, which they then equate to a quantum computational mapping. The ions that are destined to be expelled from the channel are proposed to encode information about the state of the oxygen atoms. It is further proposed the separate ion channels could be quantum entangled with one another.

To me, the quantum entanglement (or bond between different phenomenons)and the encoding of information about the state of the system in that entanglement seems all too similar to feelings as information about the emotional/bodily state. Thus, I propose that these quantum entanglements in these ion-channels may be the substrate that give rise to access to the state of the system, thus giving rise to feelings that is the feeling component of A-consciousness i.e access to one’s own emotional states.

5. Space-time theories of consciousness:

Space-time theories of consciousness have been advanced by Arthur Eddington, John Smythies and other scientists. The concept was also mentioned by Hermann Weyl who wrote that reality is a “…four-dimensional continuum which is neither ‘time’ nor ‘space’. Only the consciousness that passes on in one portion of this world experiences the detached piece which comes to meet it and passes behind it, as history, that is, as a process that is going forward in time and takes place in space”.
In 1953, CD Broad, in common with most authors in this field, proposed that there are two types of time, imaginary time measured in imaginary units (i) and real time measured on the real plane.
It can be seen that for any separation in 3D space there is a time at which the separation in 4D spacetime is zero. Similarly, if another coordinate axis is introduced called ‘real time’ that changes with imaginary time then historical events can also be no distance from a point. The combination of these result in the possibility of brain activity being at a point as well as being distributed in 3D space and time. This might allow the conscious individual to observe things, including whole movements, as if viewing them from a point.
Alex Green has developed an empirical theory of phenomenal consciousness that proposes that conscious experience can be described as a five-dimensional manifold. As in Broad’s hypothesis, space-time can contain vectors of zero length between two points in space and time because of an imaginary time coordinate. A 3D volume of brain activity over a short period of time would have the time extended geometric form of a conscious observation in 5D. Green considers imaginary time to be incompatible with the modern physical description of the world, and proposes that the imaginary time coordinate is a property of the observer and unobserved things (things governed by quantum mechanics), whereas the real time of general relativity is a property of observed things.
These space-time theories of consciousness are highly speculative but have features that their proponents consider attractive: every individual would be unique because they are a space-time path rather than an instantaneous object (i.e., the theories are non-fungible), and also because consciousness is a material thing so direct supervenience would apply. The possibility that conscious experience occupies a short period of time (the specious present) would mean that it can include movements and short words; these would not seem to be possible in a presentist interpretation of experience.
Theories of this type are also suggested by cosmology. The Wheeler-De Witt equation describes the quantum wave function of the universe (or more correctly, the multiverse).

To me, the space-time theories of consciousness that lead to observation/consciousness from a point in the 4d/5d space-time continuum seem to mirror the identity formation function of stage 5.This I relate to evaluation /deliberation aspect of A-consciousness.

6. Simulated Reality
 

In theoretical physics, digital physics holds the basic premise that the entire history of our universe is computable in some sense. The hypothesis was pioneered in Konrad Zuse’s book Rechnender Raum (translated by MIT into English as Calculating Space, 1970), which focuses on cellular automata. Juergen Schmidhuber suggested that the universe could be a Turing machine, because there is a very short program that outputs all possible programmes in an asymptotically optimal way. Other proponents include Edward Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram, and Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft. They hold that the apparently probabilistic nature of quantum physics is not incompatible with the notion of computability. A quantum version of digital physics has recently been proposed by Seth Lloyd. None of these suggestions has been developed into a workable physical theory.
It can be argued that the use of continua in physics constitutes a possible argument against the simulation of a physical universe. Removing the real numbers and uncountable infinities from physics would counter some of the objections noted above, and at least make computer simulation a possibility. However, digital physics must overcome these objections. For instance, cellular automata would appear to be a poor model for the non-locality of quantum mechanics.

To me the simulation argument is one model of us and the world- i.e we are living in a dream state/ simulation/ digital world where everything is synthetic/ predictable and computable. The alternative view of world as real, analog, continuous world where everything is creative / unpredictable and non-computable. One can , and should have both the models in mind – a simulated reality that is the world and a simulator that is oneself. Jagat mithya, brahma sach. World (simulation) is false, Brahma (creation) is true . Ability to see the world as both a fiction and a reality at the same time, as a fore laid stage and as a creative jazz at the same time leads to this sixth stage of consciousness the A-consciousness of an emergent conscious self that is distinct from mere body/brain. One can see oneself and others as actors acting as per their roles on the world’s stage; or as agents co-creating the reality.

That should be enough for today, but I am sure my astute readers will take this a notch further and propose two more theoretical approaches to consciousness and perhaps look for their neural substrates basde on teh remianing tow stages and componenets of A-consciousness..

Major conscious and unconscious processes in the brain: part 4: the easy problem of A-consciousness

This is the part 4 of the multi–part series on conscious and unconscious processes in the brain.

I’ll like to start with a quote from the Mundaka Upanishads:

Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating.


On the same tree man sits grieving, immersed, bewildered, by his own impotence. But when he sees the other lord contented and knows his glory, then his grief passes away.

Today I plan to delineate the major conscious processes in the brain, without bothering with their neural correlates or how they are related to unconscious processes that I have delineated earlier. Also I’ll be restricting the discussion mostly to the easy problem of Access or A- consciousness.  leaving the hard problem of phenomenal or P-consciousness for later.

I’ll first like to quote a definition of consciousness form Baars:

The contents of consciousness include the immediate perceptual world; inner speech and visual imagery; the fleeting present and its fading traces in immediate memory; bodily feelings like pleasure, pain, and excitement; surges of feeling; autobiographical events when they are remembered; clear and immediate intentions, expectations and actions; explicit beliefs about oneself and the world; and concepts that are abstract but focal. In spite of decades of behaviouristic avoidance, few would quarrel with this list today.

Next I would like to list the subsystems identified by Charles T tart that are involved in consciousness:

  • EXTEROCEPTION (sensing the external world)
  • INTEROCEPTION (sensing the body)
  • INPUT-PROCESSING (seeing meaningful stimuli)
  • EMOTIONS
  • MEMORY
  • SPACE/TIME SENSE
  • SENSE OF IDENTITY
  • EVALUATION AND DECISION -MAKING
  • MOTOR OUTPUT
  • SUBCONSCIOUS

With this background, let me delineate the major conscious processes/ systems that make up the A-consciousness as per me:-

  1. Perceptual system: Once the spotlight of attention is available, it can be used to bring into focus the unconscious input representations that the brain is creating.  Thus a system may evolve that has access to information regarding the sensations that are being processed or in other words that perceives and is conscious of what is being sensed. To perceive is to have access to ones sensations.  In Tarts model , it is the input-processing module  that ‘sees’ meaningful stimuli and ignores the rest / hides them from second-order representation. This is Baars immediate perceptual world.
  2. Agency system: The spotlight of attention can also bring into foreground the unconscious urges that propel movement. This access to information regarding how and why we move gives rise to the emergence of A-consciousness of will/ volition/agency. To will is to have access to ones action-causes. In tarts model , it is the motor output module that enables sense of voluntary movement. In Baars definition it is clear and immediate intentions, expectations and actions.
  3. Memory system:  The spotlight of attention may also bring into focus past learning. This access to information regarding past unconscious learning gives rise to A-consciousness of remembering/ recognizing. To remember is to have access to past learning. The Tart subsystem for the same is Memory and Baars definition is autobiographical events when they are remembered. 
  4. Feeling (emotional/ mood) system: The spotlight of attention may also highlight the emotional state of the organism. An information about one’s own emotional state gives rise to the A-consciousness of feelings that have an emotional tone/ mood associated. To feel is to have access to ones emotional state. The emotions system of Tart and Baars bodily feelings like pleasure, pain, and excitement; surges of feeling relate to this.
  5. Deliberation/ reasoning/thought system: The spotlight of attention may also highlight the decisional and evaluative unconscious processes that the organism indulges in. An information about which values guided decision can lead to a reasoning module that justifies the decisions and an A-consciousness of introspection. To think is to have access to ones own deliberation and evaluative process. Tarts evaluative and decision making module is for the same. Baars definition may be enhanced to include intorspection i.e access to thoughts and thinking (remember Descartes dictum of I think therefore I am. ) as part of consciousness.
  6. Modeling system that can differentiate and perceive dualism: The spotlight of attention may highlight the dual properties of the world (deterministic and chaotic ). An information regarding the fact that two contradictory models of the world can both be true at the same time, leads to modeling of oneslf that is different from the world giving rise to the difference between ‘this’ and ‘that’ and giving rise to the sense of self. One models both the self and the world based on principles/ subsystems of extereocpetion and interoception and this give rise to A-consciousness of beliefs about the self and the world. To believe is to have access to one’s model of something. One has access to a self/ subjectivity different from world and defined by interoceptive senses ; and a world/ reality different from self defined by exterioceptive senses. The interocpetive and exteroceptive subsystems of  Tart and Baars  explicit beliefs about oneself and the world are relevant here. This system give rise to the concept of a subjective person or self.
  7. Language system that can report on subjective contents and propositions. The spotlight of awareness may  verbalize the unconscious communicative intents and propositions giving rise to access to inner speech and enabling overt language and reporting capabilities. To verbally report is to have access to the underlying narrative that one wants to communicate and that one is creating/confabulating. This narrative and story-telling capability should also in my view lead to the A-consciousness of the stream of consciousness. This would be implemented most probably by Tart’s unconscious and space/time sense modules and relates to Baars the fleeting present and its fading traces in immediate memory- a sense of an ongoing stream of consciousness. To have a stream of consciousness is to have access to one’s inner narrative.
  8. Awareness system that can bring into focal awareness the different conscious process that are seen as  coherent. : the spotlight of attention can also be turned upon itself- an information about what all processes make a coherent whole and are thus being attended and amplified gives rise to a sense of self-identity that is stable across time and  unified in space. To be aware is to have access to what one is attending or focusing on or is ‘conscious’ of. Tarts Sense of identity subsystem and Baars concepts that are abstract but focal relate to this. Once available the spotlight of awareness opens the floodgates of phenomenal or P-consciousness or experience in the here-and-now of qualia that are invariant and experiential in  nature. That ‘feeling of what it means to be’ of course is the subject matter for another day and another post!