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PubMed1987

Dreams of the rarebit fiend: neuromedical synthesis of unconscious meaning.

A promising new "ecumenical" movement in psychiatry attempts to synthesize the two great intellectual traditions, psychoanalysis and neurobiology, so that we may avoid splitting the care of the patient into the partial domains of biotherapy that lacks the understanding of mental interrelations and purely psychological psychotherapy that lacks an appreciation of the embeddedness of mental processes in brain function. Recent synthetic work is assessed, taking as a point of departure an historic symposium in Pittsburgh, October 26-27, 1984, entitled "Neurobiology and the Unconscious: Psychoanalysis Looks Toward the Future." The means of representation of meaning (whose description was begun by Freud) in such unconscious material as dreams and folklore show the imprint of the brain function in which they are imbedded. Our afferent and efferent processes, including language, are patterned by their neuromedical basis. Linkages will be sought of representational images to visual, vestibular, and neuromotor traces: evidence that the human "thinking machine" is a very human body rather than some disembodied psychological self or computer simulation by artificial intelligence programming. Illustrative material is in part drawn from the popular dream episodes cartooned by Winsor McCay, which were considered graphic masterpieces, and incorporated representations of many normal unconscious brain mechanisms, including unusual perspectives, vestibular sensations, neuromotor inhibitions, transformations; visual and linguistic distortions, bizarre bodily intrusions, and sexual symbols. J. Allen Hobson and R.W. McCarley's 1977 arguments for the determining the significance of the pontine dream generator may have been anticipated by McCay's 1905 Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend in which, at the end of each very Freudian nightmare, the dreamer wakes and swears off eating welsh rarebits as if they caused all his unconscious images. To avoid a biological reductiveness, Freud, whom Sulloway (1983) has described as a biologist of the mind, resorted to presenting psychoanalysis as a pure psychology, not because he ever doubted the neurological imbeddedness of mind, but only because he felt medical psychoanalysts were too easily seduced and distracted by neurological mechanisms of his day to appreciate properly the importance of psychodynamics. Increasing recognition of the imbeddedness of psychoanalysis in brain function is now timely and likely, providing fresh directions for both medical psychoanalysis and the neurosciences.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Brain↗
PubMed1993

Unconscious cathexis of dream symbols as measured by the Kahn Test of Symbol Arrangement.

This study measured unconscious cathexis and conscious association with dream content, using the Kahn Test of Symbol Arrangement (KTSA), with subjects reporting recurring, past-recurring, and nonrecurring dreams. Unconscious cathexis of dream content was noted for recurring dreamers; conscious association with dream content was not. The results suggest that the KTSA is a valuable instrument for the empirical study of unconscious processes and that the contents of recurring dreams are particularly salient in a dreamer's unconscious.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Unconscious perception: a model-based approach to method and evidence.

Unconscious perceptual effects remain controversial because it is hard to rule out alternative conscious perception explanations for them. We present a novel methodological framework, stressing the centrality of specifying the single-process conscious perception model (i.e., the null hypothesis). Various considerations, including those of SDT (Macmillan & Creelman, 1991), suggest that conscious perception functions hierarchically, in such a way that higher level effects (e.g., semantic priming) should not be possible without lower level discrimination (i.e., detection and identification). Relatedly, alternative conscious perception accounts (as well as the exhaustiveness, null sensitivity, and exclusiveness problems-Reingold & Merikle, 1988, 1990) predict positive relationships between direct and indirect measures. Contrariwise, our review suggests that negative and/or nonmonotonic relationships are found, providing strong evidence for unconscious perception and further suggesting that conscious and unconscious perceptual influences are functionally exclusive (cf. Jones, 1987), in such a way that the former typically override the latter when both are present. Consequently, unconscious perceptual effects manifest reliably only when conscious perception is completely absent, which occurs at the objective detection (but not identification) threshold.

Humans↗
PubMed1997

[Matter and spirit: the unconscious in Carl Gustav Carus's psychology (1779-1868)].

Carl Gustav Carus, one of the originators of a doctrine centered on the unconscious, is an interesting figure from current viewpoints. The doctrine he espoused was psychological, but in addition, the author sought foundations for his thinking in the biological knowledge of his time. The unconscious that Carus postulated was simultaneously biological, material and psychological in nature. Thus the history of psychism--the history of the soul--was related with the individual's and the species's biological history. From this perspective the unconscious was recognized as an indispensable element of rational thought. This theory, which recalls in many aspects that of C.G. Jung, made possible the medical study of psychic life and the revaluation of unconscious factors of psychism which were usually denigrated by modern anthropologists and moralists.

History, 18th Century↗
PubMed2001

Confidence in word detection predicts word identification: implications for an unconscious perception paradigm.

The present experiments extend the scope of the independent observation model based on signal detection theory (Macmillan & Creelman, 1991) to complex (word) stimulus sets. In the first experiment, the model predicts the relationship between uncertain detection and subsequent correct identification, thereby providing an alternative interpretation to a phenomenon often described as unconscious perception. Our second experiment used an exclusion task (Jacoby, Toth, & Yonelinas, 1993), which, according to theories of unconscious perception, should show qualitative differences in performance based on stimulus detection accuracy and provide a relative measure of conscious versus unconscious influences (Merikle, Joordens, & Stoltz, 1995). Exclusion performance was also explained by the model, suggesting that undetected words did not unconsciously influence identification responses.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Unconscious perception or not? An evaluation of detection and discrimination as indicators of awareness.

Most investigations of unconscious perception use a dissociation design in which an awareness variable (e.g., detection) is compared with a perceptual processing variable (e.g., identification). Unconscious perception is inferred when the awareness variable lacks sensitivity to the stimulus but evidence of perceptual processing is still obtained. In two studies we examined the relationship between word identification and detection (Study 1) or discrimination (words vs. nonwords; Study 2) with a variety of techniques. In both studies, dissociations suggestive of unconscious perception occurred when the data were examined with subjective threshold approaches, but these differences disappeared when the variables were compared with techniques derived from signal detection theory (SDT). These results do not support unconscious perception in subjective threshold paradigms. In addition, detection appears to be the most sensitive and appropriate task for assessing stimulus awareness, provided that several SDT assumptions are met.

Awareness↗
PubMed1989

Defining risk in aerospace medical unconsciousness research.

The maneuverability envelopes of current and future fighter/attack aircraft exceed unprotected human tolerance to environmental stress. Human exposure to unconsciousness therefore can result not only inflight, but in research and training laboratories which endeavor to provide methods of enhanced protection for aircrew. Solving the problem of unconsciousness requires a thorough understanding of the phenomenon itself. This can only be accomplished by defining the psychophysiologic aspects of unconsciousness and techniques to prevent its occurrence or enhance recovery, should it occur. The safety of experimental human exposure to G-LOC however, remains of some concern. A framework for discussing the relative insult to the central nervous system may be constructed from what is currently known about G-LOC. The results of animal experimentation allow an estimation of the central nervous system tolerance to hypoxia without permanent alteration of tissue integrity. Clinical medicine documentation of syncope and fainting episodes, coupled with a long history of uncomplicated G-LOC episodes suggests that a certain window of safe exposure exists. Utilization of G-LOC as an endpoint included exposure of very large numbers of humans to unconsciousness without significant complication. Animal experimentation suggests that 180 s of central nervous system hypoxia is associated with uncomplicated recovery. Human exposure as long as 100 s has also been safely accomplished. Centrifuge G-LOC exposure typically results in only 15-20 s of central nervous system hypoxia. As long as G-LOC experimentation using humans is performed within well defined limits, it may be accomplished within an acceptable risk envelope.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aerospace Medicine↗
PubMed1987

Rethinking the unconscious: the unacknowledged contribution of Edward Sapir to Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan.

Sapir defined the human unconscious as a mechanism (based on phonemes learned during language acquisition) which imposes linguistic forms upon out-of-awareness 'psychic content' or 'elements of experience', rather than as a repository of repressed impulses or ideas striving for expression. In contemporary terms this activity may be regarded as unconscious information processing prequisite to experiential residues becoming available to conscious attention. It also imposes (as in 'projecting') the observer's cultural forms, modified by developmental experience, upon communications from others. This view antedates Lévi-Strauss' unconscious which 'transforms' elements of the past 'into language' and Lacan's unconscious structured 'like a language'. The clinical psychoanalytic study of out-of-awareness mental processes, understood as a dialectic shaped by the discrepancy in power between analyst and patient, illuminates the unstable relationship between the words or signifiers selected by the patient from the infinite lexicon of available, usually socially shared, verbal or non-verbal language (his plane of expression) and his varied preconscious collections of signifieds, including cultural as well as personal developmental knowledge (his plane of content).

Freudian Theory↗
PubMed1995

[Scene and symbol as driving forces. The unconscious fantasy in the transference].

Scene and Symbol as Motive Forces. Unconscious fantasy in transference.--Psychoanalysis regards unconscious fantasy as the motive force in human life. The analytic situation provides a framework for the crystallisation of unconscious fantasies. In the transference process fundamental scenes from childhood are reenacted, organised in terms of symbols and charged with meaning. With reference to a number of actual cases, the author demonstrates that scenically condensed, repressed conflicts thus develop psychic virulence and that in this scenic context the so-called Zeigarnik effect brings the unconscious fantasy to a standstill, allowing it to live on in the memory as an unconcluded action. Conclusion is however a necessary condition for forgetting. Only when this standstill is overcome via transference is psychic growth possible again.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

On knowing the unconscious: lessons from the epistemology of geometry and space.

Concepts involving unconscious processes and contents are central to any understanding of psychoanalysis. Indeed, the dynamic unconscious is familiar as a necessary assumption of the psychoanalytic method. Using the manner of knowing the geometry of space, including non-ordinary sized space, this paper attempts to demonstrate by analogy the possibility of knowing (and knowing the nature of) unconscious mentation-that of which by definition we cannot be aware; and yet that which constitutes a basic assumption of psychoanalysis. As an assumption of the psychoanalytic method, no amount of data from within the psychoanalytic method can ever provide evidence for the existence of the unconscious, nor for knowing its nature; hence the need for this sort of illustration by analogy. Along the way, three claims are made: (1) Freudian 'secondary process' operating during everyday adult, normal, logical thought can be considered a modernised version of the Kantian categories. (2) Use of models facilitates a generation of outside-the-Kantian-categories possibilities, and also provides a conserving function, as outside-the-categories possibilities can be assimilated. (3) Transformations are different from translations; knowledge of transformations can provide non-trivial knowledge about various substrates, otherwise difficult to know.

Freudian Theory↗
PubMed2000

Mechanisms of unconscious priming: I. Response competition, not spreading activation.

Four experiments were conducted to replicate and expand upon A. G. Greenwald, S. C. Draine, and R. L. Abrams's (1996) demonstration that unconsciously perceived priming words can influence judgments of other words. The present experiments manipulated 2 types of relationships between priming and target stimuli: (a) whether priming and target stimuli possess a preexisting semantic relationship (an affective relationship in Experiments 1, 2, and 4; an associative relationship in Experiment 3; and an animacy relationship in Experiment 4) and (b) whether the primes and targets produce the same response. Large priming effects were found only when the primes and targets possessed response compatibility. No residual effects for affective, animacy, or semantic relatedness were observed. Although these results strongly support the conclusion that word meaning can be unconsciously activated, they do not support the claim that the unconscious perception effects obtained in Greenwald et al.'s (1996) paradigm are caused by automatic spreading activation of word meaning. Instead, the results reported here are consistent with a claim that unconsciously perceived words automatically trigger response tendencies that facilitate or interfere with target responding.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Conscious and unconscious influences of memory: temporal dynamics.

Changes in the conscious and unconscious influences of memory over time were assessed in two experiments by using a variant of the process-dissociation procedure. In both experiments, performance on a stem-completion task was measured under both inclusion and exclusion instructions. Across the two experiments, there were four different retention intervals: 2 minutes, 2 days, 2 weeks, and 2 months. The results indicated that conscious influences decreased systematically across retention interval. In contrast, unconscious influences of memory in the absence of conscious influences increased between 2 minutes and 2 days, and then remained relatively stable from 2 days to 2 weeks to 2 months. These results stand in apparent contrast to those of McBride and Dosher (1999), which showed equal rates of forgetting for conscious and unconscious influences of memory on performance. The implications for models of the relation between conscious and unconscious influences of memory on performance are discussed.

Consciousness↗
PubMed1996

An investigation into the attitudes and practices of intensive care nurses towards verbal communication with unconscious patients.

This study attempted to investigate the attitudes and practices of intensive care nurses towards verbal communication with unconscious patients. A sample of five staff nurses working in an intensive care unit in Northern Ireland formed the basis for the study. The research design was non-experimental and descriptive-exploratory in nature, incorporating 4-hourly observational periods and structured interviews. Qualitative and quantitative analysis indicated that intensive care nurses spend on average 5% of their time verbally communicating with unconscious patients. Most of this communication involves informing the patient of immediate procedural matters or providing reassuring statements. Most intensive care nurses claim that verbal communication with unconscious patients is very important, and some ambiguity is apparent as to the unconscious patient's level of awareness. Major factors influencing communication are the patient's level of consciousness, the amount of physical care being given and the presence of relatives.

Coma↗
PubMed1985

Animal models for protecting ischemic myocardium: results of the NHLBI Cooperative Study. Comparison of unconscious and conscious dog models.

The Animal Models for Protecting Ischemic Myocardium Study was undertaken for the purpose of developing reproducible animal models that could be used to assess interventions designed to limit infarct size. This paper describes the results obtained in an unconscious dog model and in a conscious dog model, developed in three participating laboratories. The unconscious dog model, involving reperfusion after 3 hours of ischemia in open-chest dogs, was intended to determine whether therapy followed by early reperfusion would limit infarct size more than reperfusion alone. The conscious dog model used chronically instrumented dogs and permanent coronary occlusion to better mimic myocardial infarction in man. In both models, the proximal circumflex artery was occluded, and the primary experimental endpoint was infarct size, as measured by histological techniques 3 days after the initial occlusion. Infarct size was analyzed in relation to baseline variables including the anatomic area at risk, collateral blood flow to the subepicardial zone of ischemia and hemodynamic determinants of myocardial metabolic demand. Most of the variation in infarct size in control dogs could be related to variation in the area at risk, collateral blood flow, and rate pressure product. Using multivariate analysis and groups of 15 dogs, an intervention that limited infarct size by 10-13% of the area at risk would have been detected 50% of the time. Larger treatment effects would be detected more readily, and smaller effects often would be missed, unless group sizes were larger. Two drugs, verapamil and ibuprofen, were evaluated in both models, with experimental group sizes averaging 13 and 20 dogs, in the unconscious and conscious models, respectively. Three of 15 verapamil-treated dogs in the unconscious model study had much smaller infarcts than expected from baseline parameters. With these exceptions, neither drug limited infarct size in either model.

Anesthesia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Use of 24-hour casette monitoring of the EEG recording in the differential diagnosis of attacks of unconsciousness in adults].

24-hour cassette recording of EEG using the Medilog 9000 system was done in 36 patients referred for observations because of diagnostic difficulties in cases of refractors unconsciousness attacks. The method made possible isolation of 3 groups: 1. 6 patients with attacks not suggestive of epilepsy 2. 12 patients with false unconsciousness attacks which were in fact short partial complex seizures (temporal lobe absence) 3. 17 patients with actual unconsciousness attacks. The study demonstrated a high usefulness of 24-hour EEG monitoring in the differential diagnosis of unconsciousness attacks increasing the likelihood of attack recording and making possible their precise clinical and EEG characteristics which is often impossible with routine EEG and history taking.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Auditory nerve and brain stem responses. Comparison in awake and unconscious subjects.

The recording of auditory nerve and brain stem responses to click stimuli is being used for the diagnosis of several conditions such as suspected hearing loss and suspected neurological disorders. The responses obtained in the patient group (often infants and children) are compared with those obtained in normal subjects of similar age who, for ethical reasons, are not sedated. In this study, recordings were made in normal subjects while they were awake and when they were unconscious in drug-induced sleep (being prepared for dental surgery). No significant difference could be observed between the recordings obtained in the awake state and when unconscious in the same subjects. Therefore, one is justified in using recordings made in awake subjects as controls for recordings made in other unconscious patients.

Brain Stem↗
PubMed1993

The psychological unconscious and the self.

Documentation of implicit expressions of memory in head-injured, mentally ill and normal individuals has offered a new perspective on the problem of unconscious influence on conscious experience, thought and action. The phenomenon of implicit memory is described and used as a basis to develop an analogous concept of implicit perception. In both cases the person shows the effects of current or past events, even though these events are not accessible to phenomenal awareness. There is collateral evidence for the emotional unconscious: emotional states can serve as evidence of implicit perception or memory, and there is evidence of desynchrony between the subjective experience of emotion, which can be identified with consciousness, and the effects of emotional responses on physiology and overt behaviour. Theoretical approaches to the psychological unconscious include a connectionist approach, which affords a limited role for conscious processing in mental life; a neuropsychological approach, involving the disconnection of a module serving consciousness from the rest of the cognitive system; and a psychological approach, which emphasizes the central role in conscious awareness of mental representations of the self as the agent or experiencer of events.

Cognition↗
PubMed2002

Disability versus futility in rationing health care services: defining medical futility based on permanent unconsciousness--PVS, coma, and anencephaly.

All societies must ration health care services in the face of unlimited demand. The concept of medical futility may appear to be an uncontroversial means by which to ration services. Depending upon how it is applied, however, limiting services based on alleged medical futility may violate prohibitions against disability-based discrimination. In particular, use of medical futility to require removal of life-sustaining interventions has been held to violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA protects both people with disabilities who are conscious and people in unconscious states, such as permanent vegetative state (PVS), coma, and anencephaly. Ultimately, as the number of people in permanently unconscious states increases, our society will have to recognize that consciousness is an essential characteristic defining human beings and determining whether a legal right to unlimited life-sustaining intervention should apply. This article proposes to define medical futility to preclude life-sustaining interventions after a stated period of permanent unconsciousness and to redefine the end of life consistently as neocortical death.

Anencephaly↗