Great article! I like the conceptual clarification that you do about what it means to say that a process is unconscious and how people use this term inconsistently in the literature. I’ve never seen that put so well and it’s important.
I was wondering what you think of cases where a good idea ‘spontaneously’ occurs to someone while there thinking about something unrelated or while their mind is wandering. I only know anecdotes about this phenomenon, but I think it’s a widespread phenomenon that most people would experience something like this themselves.
Some people have some of their best ideas in this way and it seems to satisfy both criteria for being an unconscious process. I am not sure if it’s directly related to any of the potential consciousness indicating features, but it seems like an example of very complex cognition being unconscious. Albeit it’s a bit murky how it occurs.
Hey Max! Thanks for your feedback and for your vital contribution to this project. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you before –I had taken a few days off.
The example you provide fits well in what I classified as “sophisticated information processing functions that can be performed unconsciously”. Of course we can come up with creative ideas after a period of conscious thought, but it doesn’t necessarily happen that way. As you describe, unconscious processes play an important role in achieving creative insights, during what is called “the incubation period”. Neuroimaging studies suggest that the association cortices are the primary areas that are active during this state and that the brain is spontaneously reorganizing itself. Recent research also supports the idea that it is not merely the absence of conscious thought that drives creativity incubation effects, but that during an incubation period unconscious processes contribute to creative thinking.
It’s still not clear which are the functional advantages of conscious over non-conscious thinking. In general, which kind of stimuli or tasks are more efficiently processed using unconscious mechanisms is an issue that remains to be elucidated. We also need a more refined distinction between neural correlates of unconsciousness (the absence of any conscious contents) vs. neural correlates of disconnectedness (the absence of perception of the environment) in different altered levels of consciousness.
How these findings can be applied to research on consciousness in invertebrates? I’m unsure. Perhaps we can assess if equivalent structures of their CNS are activated when performing tasks that challenge them to “make associations” –and this may shed some light on how likely they are to show flexible (“creative”) responses. Currently, in my opinion, it is clearer how these findings can contribute to improving our thinking: for instance, we are likely to benefit more from an incubation period when we get stuck, or when we are dealing with a problem where the conventional approach is wrong. For specific tasks, a break of 3 min can be enough to promote unconscious thought. Understanding and facilitating creativity can have a direct application in the EA community since creativity plays a vital role in research and designing innovative solutions.
Great article! I like the conceptual clarification that you do about what it means to say that a process is unconscious and how people use this term inconsistently in the literature. I’ve never seen that put so well and it’s important.
I was wondering what you think of cases where a good idea ‘spontaneously’ occurs to someone while there thinking about something unrelated or while their mind is wandering. I only know anecdotes about this phenomenon, but I think it’s a widespread phenomenon that most people would experience something like this themselves.
Some people have some of their best ideas in this way and it seems to satisfy both criteria for being an unconscious process. I am not sure if it’s directly related to any of the potential consciousness indicating features, but it seems like an example of very complex cognition being unconscious. Albeit it’s a bit murky how it occurs.
Hey Max! Thanks for your feedback and for your vital contribution to this project. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you before –I had taken a few days off.
The example you provide fits well in what I classified as “sophisticated information processing functions that can be performed unconsciously”. Of course we can come up with creative ideas after a period of conscious thought, but it doesn’t necessarily happen that way. As you describe, unconscious processes play an important role in achieving creative insights, during what is called “the incubation period”. Neuroimaging studies suggest that the association cortices are the primary areas that are active during this state and that the brain is spontaneously reorganizing itself. Recent research also supports the idea that it is not merely the absence of conscious thought that drives creativity incubation effects, but that during an incubation period unconscious processes contribute to creative thinking.
It’s still not clear which are the functional advantages of conscious over non-conscious thinking. In general, which kind of stimuli or tasks are more efficiently processed using unconscious mechanisms is an issue that remains to be elucidated. We also need a more refined distinction between neural correlates of unconsciousness (the absence of any conscious contents) vs. neural correlates of disconnectedness (the absence of perception of the environment) in different altered levels of consciousness.
How these findings can be applied to research on consciousness in invertebrates? I’m unsure. Perhaps we can assess if equivalent structures of their CNS are activated when performing tasks that challenge them to “make associations” –and this may shed some light on how likely they are to show flexible (“creative”) responses. Currently, in my opinion, it is clearer how these findings can contribute to improving our thinking: for instance, we are likely to benefit more from an incubation period when we get stuck, or when we are dealing with a problem where the conventional approach is wrong. For specific tasks, a break of 3 min can be enough to promote unconscious thought. Understanding and facilitating creativity can have a direct application in the EA community since creativity plays a vital role in research and designing innovative solutions.