The purpose of this article is to discuss various issues relevant to the nature of independent action by consciousness. Two forms of independent action by consciousness have been proposed by various researchers: free will and holistic processing, and both will be discussed. (Holistic processing contributes to the formation of behavior through the holistic use of brain programs and encoding.) An...

Understanding the neural basis of conscious experience and its regulation are fundamental goals of science. While recent research has made substantial progress in identifying the neural correlates of conscious experiences, it remains unclear how individuals exert control over the contents of awareness. In particular, can a memory that has entered the aware state be purged from consciousness if ...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess differences in brain activation in a large sample of Vegetative State (VS) and Minimally Conscious State (MCS) patients, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). METHODS We studied 50 patients four to seven months after brain injury. By using international clinical criteria and validated behavioural scales such as the Glasgow Coma Scale...

In this article, an account is given of the relation between naturalism and transcendentalism in the current project of naturalizing phenomenology. This project usually takes the transcendental point of view to be in conflict with the naturalizing attitude and the contemporary sciences of cognition thus seem to require cutting Husserlian phenomenology from its anti-naturalist roots, i.e., natur...

Zarathushtra, a visionary giant, must be credited as the father of modern philosophical thought and opinions. Through his poetic hymns he transmits the prophetic notions of his Divine Revelation, leaving behind words of profound psycho-social significance, which have triggered off an endless chain of philosophical discussions on the matters of the mind and human conscious senses. The modern mea...

OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to provide a comprehensive understanding of how women informal caregivers of patients in vegetative state (VS) or minimally conscious state (MCS) describe, represent, and experience changes that occurred in their life after the acute event of their family member. METHODS A qualitative study was conducted and fifteen women informal caregivers, mothers, or spouses of p...

OBJECTIVE To describes socio-demographic and clinical features of adults and children in vegetative state (VS) and minimally conscious state (MCS). DESIGN Observational cross-sectional study. METHODS Demographic, aetiological and clinical data were collected, together with patients' management procedures. Mann-Whitney U-test was used for continuous variables and chi-squared test for categor...

Stimuli can be rendered invisible using a variety of methods and the method selected to demonstrate unconscious processing in a given study often appears to be arbitrary. Here, we compared unconscious processing under continuous flash suppression (CFS) and meta-contrast masking, using similar stimuli, tasks and measures. Participants were presented with a prime arrow followed by a target arrow....

The study of non-conscious vision benefits from several alternative methods that allow the suppression of an image from awareness. Here, we present and compare two of them that are particularly well-suited for creating sustained periods of invisibility, namely visual crowding and continuous flash suppression (CFS). In visual crowding, a peripheral image surrounded by similar flankers becomes im...

Creativity is considered a positive personal trait. However, highly creative people have demonstrated elevated risk for certain forms of psychopathology, including mood disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and alcoholism. A model of shared vulnerability explains the relation between creativity and psychopathology. This model, supported by recent findings from neuroscience and molecular ...