Abstract
A major open question in psychology is why we developed consciousness. Why did evolution grant us the ability to experience some processes, and is there any functional benefit to having such conscious experiences? One way to study the latter question focuses on characterizing what cannot be done without consciousness. Here, we re-visit a finding from 2012 showing that people can do math unconsciously in a flexible manner (i.e., following invisible instructions). In two highly powered experiments, we failed to find the same effect. We conclude that consciousness may indeed be necessary for tasks that require integrating different kinds of information in a complex and flexible manner, in line with several theories of consciousness.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2470-2486 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Journal of Experimental Psychology: General |
| Volume | 153 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2024 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 The Author(s) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). This license permits copying and redistributing the work in any medium or format for noncommercial use provided the original authors and source are credited and a link to the license is included in attribution. No derivative works are permitted under this license. All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.
Keywords
- arithmetic
- integration
- replication
- unconscious processing
- visual masking
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