Dissociable Brain Mechanisms Underlying the Conscious and Unconscious Control of Behavior

Gaal, Simon van; Lamme, Victor A. F.; Fahrenfort, Johannes J.; Ridderinkhof, K. Richard

doi:10.1162/jocn.2010.21431

Cited by 107 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…For instance, subliminal primes can influence prefrontal mechanisms of cognitive control involved in the selection of a task (11) or the inhibition of a motor response (12). Neural mechanisms of decision-making involve accumulating sensory evidence that affects the probability of the various choices until a threshold is attained.…”

Section: Unconscious Control and Decision-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is consciousness, and could machines have it?

Dehaene

Lau

Kouider

2017

Science

515

318

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The controversial question of whether machines may ever be conscious must be based on a careful consideration of how consciousness arises in the only physical system that undoubtedly possesses it: the human brain. We suggest that the word “consciousness” conflates two different types of information-processing computations in the brain: the selection of information for global broadcasting, thus making it flexibly available for computation and report (C1, consciousness in the first sense), and the self-monitoring of those computations, leading to a subjective sense of certainty or error (C2, consciousness in the second sense). We argue that despite their recent successes, current machines are still mostly implementing computations that reflect unconscious processing (C0) in the human brain. We review the psychological and neural science of unconscious (C0) and conscious computations (C1 and C2) and outline how they may inspire novel machine architectures.

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Section: Unconscious Control and Decision-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is consciousness, and could machines have it?

Dehaene

Lau

Kouider

2017

Science

515

318

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In general, larger (more negative) N2 components are observed following NoGo as compared to Go trials (Pfefferbaum et al, 1985), possibly reflecting effortful motor inhibition of the prepotent Go response (Bokura, Yamaguchi, & Kobayashi, 2001;Eimer, 1993;Falkenstein, Hoormann, & Hohnsbein, 1999;Lavric, Pizzagalli, & Forstmeier, 2004;Pfefferbaum et al, 1985;van Gaal et al, 2011).…”

Section: N2 Erp Componentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On these views, to consciously resist a prepotent action one should also be conscious of the urge to act, of the need to inhibit it, and subsequently of the volitional decision to do so. However, several studies have demonstrated nonconscious manipulation of motor-control processes via subliminal priming (e.g., van Gaal, Lamme, Fahrenfort, & Ridderinkhof, 2011;van Gaal, Ridderinkhof, van den Wildenberg, & Lamme, 2009). However, these studies focused on exogenously (stimuluselicited) inhibition, leaving open the question of whether there are nonconscious effects on volitional, endogenously generated intentional inhibition.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry: Volitional choices to act or inhibit are modulated by subliminal perception of emotional faces

Parkinson

Garfinkel

Critchley

et al. 2016

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Volitional action and self-control-feelings of acting according to one's own intentions and in being control of one's own actions-are fundamental aspects of human conscious experience. However, it is unknown whether high-level cognitive control mechanisms are affected by socially salient but nonconscious emotional cues. In this study, we manipulated free choice decisions to act or withhold an action by subliminally presenting emotional faces: In a novel version of the Go/NoGo paradigm, participants made speeded button-press responses to Go targets, withheld responses to NoGo targets, and made spontaneous, free choices to execute or withhold the response for Choice targets. Before each target, we presented emotional faces, backwards masked to render them nonconscious. In Intentional trials, subliminal angry faces made participants more likely to voluntarily withhold the action, whereas fearful and happy faces had no effects. In a second experiment, the faces were made supraliminal, which eliminated the effects of angry faces on volitional choices. A third experiment measured neural correlates of the effects of subliminal angry faces on intentional choice using EEG. After replicating the behavioural results found in Experiment 1, we identified a frontal-midline theta component-associated with cognitive control processes-which is present for volitional decisions, and is modulated by subliminal angry faces. This suggests a mechanism whereby subliminally presented Bthreat^stimuli affect conscious control processes. In summary, nonconscious perception of angry faces increases choices to inhibit, and subliminal influences on volitional action are deep seated and ecologically embedded.Keywords Cognitive control . Decision-making . Emotion . ERP . PrimingHealthy adult individuals experience volitional control over many of their actions. This notion is fundamental to most conceptions of morality and responsibility. Voluntary control allows the individual to implement reasoned and flexible goaloriented action rather than being constantly enslaved by automatic responses to the external environment (Shadlen & Gold, 2004). While volitional production of actions has been long studied (e.g., Libet, Gleason, Wright, & Pearl, 1983), not much attention has been given to volitional self-control and the role of inhibition in volition (but see Filevich, Kühn, & Haggard, 2012;Parkinson & Haggard, 2014, 2015.Some forms of self-control can be considered tonic-or long lasting-such as refraining from a substance of abuse. This is often colloquially referred to as Bwillpower ( Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998;Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007). Other forms focus on more immediate and transient moments of self-control-the notion of Bstopping oneself from doing something at the last moment^-which we call intentional inhibition (Filevich et al., 2012;Parkinson & Haggard, 2014). As an everyday example, consider refraining from shouting at a loved one whilst in anger. Experimentally we define this as endogenously cancelling ...

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“…Most studies using eventrelated potentials (ERPs) in the stop-signal and go/no-go task, have focused on the frontal N2 and P3, labeled the N2/P3 complex (e.g. Bekker et al, 2005a;Bokura et al, 2001;Eimer, 1993;Huster et al, 2010Huster et al, , 2011Kok et al, 2004;Ramautar et al, 2006a;Schmajuk et al, 2006;van Boxtel et al, 2001;van Gaal et al, 2011). Recent studies have found that the N2 is usually larger in unsuccessful than in successful stop trials suggesting a general role in response control, conflict monitoring and error processing (Dimoska et al, 2006;Enriquez-Geppert et al, 2010;Greenhouse and Wessel, 2013;Huster et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%