E-LOGOS 2019, 26(2):35-47 | DOI: 10.18267/j.e-logos.466

Meta-awareness as a solution to the problem of Awareness of Intention

Ondřej Bečev
Národní ústav duševního zdraví, Topolová 748, 250 67 Klecany.
Neurologická klinika, Fakultní nemocnice u Sv. Anny a Lékařská fakulta Masarykovy Univerzity, Pekařská 664/53, 656 91 Brno.

Awareness of intention je fenomenální zkušenost prožitku motorické intence, charakterizovaná jako vědomé uchopení akce, kterou se agent chystá provést. Typicky bývá ztotožňována s okamžikem, kdy si participant vzpomíná, že se rozhodl provést svou akci, reportovaným prostřednictvím pozice ručičky na ciferníku Libetových hodin. Intenzivní výzkum prožitku jednání (sense of agency) v posledních letech přinesl velké množství poznatků, ale také kritiku metodologických slabin, mezi které patří závislost výsledků na metodě reportování a závislost na arbitrárních vlastnostech reportovacích nástrojů. Filozofové si zase všímají intervenujících klamů vědomí či chyby Karteziánského divadla. Význačnou otázkou je také značná heterogenita experimentálních výsledků. Východiskem textu je argument, že mnohé z problémů tohoto výzkumného program souvisí se sadou implicitně zastávaných postojů, které vnímají awareness of intention jako integrovaný, unitární proces charakterizovaný graduálním nárůstem premotorické mozkové aktivity a náhlým nástupem uvědomění. Tato konceptuální východiska jsou převážně nereflektovaná, kontingentní a představují významné omezení pro explanaci současných empirických pozorování. Těžištěm článku je nástin nového teoretického rámce, který jde za implicitní předporozumění integrované perspektivy a umožňuje integrovat rozporné behaviorální výsledky. Tato rekonceptualice staví na Schoolerově teorii meta-uvědomění a teorii access a phenomenal consciousness Neda Blocka a nachází také oporu v neurovědných studiích. Představená rekonceptualizace přichází s dichotomií fenomenálního awareness of intention, souvisejícího s přípravou motorické intence v prefrontální oblasti a reflexivního meta-awareness of intention, které patrně souvisí s procesy v parietálním kortexu.

Keywords: Awareness of intention, meta-awareness, meta-consciousness, prožitek jednání, sense of agency

Awareness of intention is a phenomenal experience characterized as a conscious grasp of an action the agent is about to perform. Classically, it is identified with the moment the participant recalls deciding to move, as reported by the position of a hand on the Libet clock face. Booming research on the sense of agency produced significant knowledge but also a discussion of the methodological weaknesses, including a reliance on the experimental results on the reporting method and the arbitrary features of the reporting methods. Philosophers, on the other hand, discuss the intervening illusions and biases of consciousness or the Cartesian theater fallacy. A significant concern is the considerable heterogeneity of the experimental outcomes. A starting point for the present text is the argument that many of the issues of the research program at hand stem from the specific, implicitly held conceptualization. This implicit conceptualization understands awareness of intention as an integrated unitary process characterized by a gradual rise of premotor brain activity and sudden onset of the awareness. As I argue, this conceptual pre-understanding is mostly unreflected, contingent, and presents a significant limitation for the explanation of the empirical results currently dealt with. The text aims at outlining the new theoretical framework that goes beyond the present integrated perspective and permits to consolidate conflicting behavioral results. This reconceptualization builds upon Schooler’s theory of meta-awareness, the theory of access and phenomenal consciousness by Ned Block and also finds support in neuroscientific studies. The reconceptualization presented here introduces the dichotomy of phenomenal awareness of intention associated with the preparation of motor intention in the prefrontal cortex and a reflexive meta-awareness of intention that is likely linked to processes in the parietal cortex.

Keywords: Awareness of intention, meta-awareness, meta-consciousness, sense of agency

Published: December 31, 2019  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Bečev, O. (2019). Meta-awareness as a solution to the problem of Awareness of Intention. E-LOGOS, 26(2), 35-47. doi: 10.18267/j.e-logos.466
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Bečev, O. (2015). Jak měřit vědomí: metodologie časového určení vědomých prožitků. In I. Farkaš, M. Takáč, J. Rybár, & J. Kelemen (Eds.), Kognícia a umelý život 2015. Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave.
    2. Block, N. (2005). Two neural correlates of consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(2), 46-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.12.006 Go to original source...
    3. Block, N. (2007). Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(5-6), 481-499; discussion 499-548. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X07002786 Go to original source...
    4. Bode, S., He, A. H., Soon, C. S., Trampel, R., Turner, R., & Haynes, J.-D. (2011). Tracking the unconscious generation of free decisions using ultra-high field fMRI. PloS One, 6(6), e21612. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021612 Go to original source...
    5. Danquah, A. N., Farrell, M. J., & O'Boyle, D. J. (2008). Biases in the subjective timing of perceptual events: Libet et al. (1983) revisited. Consciousness and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2007.09.005 Go to original source...
    6. Dennett, D. (1996). Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanins of Life. Simon and Schuster.
    7. Dennett, D., & Kinsbourne, M. (1992). Time and the Observer: the Where and When of Consciousness in the Brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15(2), 183-247. Go to original source...
    8. Dewey, J. a, & Knoblich, G. (2014). Do Implicit and Explicit Measures of the Sense of Agency Measure the Same Thing? PloS One, 9(10), e110118. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110118 Go to original source...
    9. Edelman, G. M. (2003). Naturalizing consciousness: A theoretical framework. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100(9), 5520-5524. Go to original source...
    10. Edelman, G. M. (2004). Wider than the sky: The phenomenal gift of consciousness. Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci23795 Go to original source...
    11. Guggisberg, A. G., Dalal, S. S., Schnider, A., & Nagarajan, S. S. (2011). The neural basis of event-time introspection. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(4), 1899-1915. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2011.03.008 Go to original source...
    12. Guggisberg, A. G., & Mottaz, A. (2013). Timing and awareness of movement decisions: does consciousness really come too late? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(July), 385. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00385 Go to original source...
    13. Haggard, P., & Eimer, M. (1999). On the relation between brain potentials and the awareness of voluntary movements. Experimental Brain Research, 126(1), 128-133. Go to original source...
    14. Haggard, P., & Libet, B. (2001). Conscious Intention and Brain Activity. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(11), 47-63.
    15. Haggard, P., & Tsakiris, M. (2009). The Experience of Agency. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(4), 242-246. Go to original source...
    16. Herrmann, C. S., Pauen, M., Min, B.-K., Busch, N. A., & Rieger, J. W. (2008). Analysis of a choice-reaction task yields a new interpretation of Libet's experiments. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 67(2), 151-157. Go to original source...
    17. Ivanof, B. E., Terhune, D. B., Coyle, D., & Moore, J. W. (2008). The effect of changes to the Libet clock and intentional binding.
    18. Lau, H., Maniscalco, B., Shaver, E. C., & Graves, T. (2012). Awareness of Intention. In Scholarpedia (pp. 1-7).
    19. Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8(04), 529. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00044903 Go to original source...
    20. Libet, B., Gleason, C. a., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain, 106(3), 623-642. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/106.3.623 Go to original source...
    21. Matsuhashi, M., & Hallett, M. (2008). The timing of the conscious intention to move. European Journal of Neuroscience, 28(11), 2344-2351. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2008.06525.x Go to original source...
    22. Miller, J., Shepherdson, P., & Trevena, J. (2011). Effects of clock monitoring on electroencephalographic activity: Is unconscious movement initiation an artifact of the clock? Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610391100 Go to original source...
    23. Moore, J. W., & Bravin, J. (2015). Schizotypy and awareness of intention: Variability of W judgments predicts schizotypy scores. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2(3), 283-290. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000035 Go to original source...
    24. Pockett, S., & Miller, A. (2007). The rotating spot method of timing subjective events. Consciousness and Cognition, 16(2), 241-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2006.09.002 Go to original source...
    25. Rigoni, D., Brass, M., Roger, C., Vidal, F., & Sartori, G. (2013). Top-down modulation of brain activity underlying intentional action and its relationship with awareness of intention: An ERP/Laplacian analysis. Experimental Brain Research, 229(3), 347-357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3400-0 Go to original source...
    26. Schooler, J. W. (2002). Re-representing consciousness: Dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(8), 339-344. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01949-6 Go to original source...
    27. Schurger, A., Sitt, J. D., & Dehaene, S. (2012). An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(42), E2904-13. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1210467109 Go to original source...
    28. Sirigu, A., Daprati, E., Ciancia, S., Giraux, P., Nighoghossian, N., Posada, A., & Haggard, P. (2004). Altered awareness of voluntary action after damage to the parietal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 7(1), 80-84. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1160 Go to original source...
    29. Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.-J., & Haynes, J.-D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 11(5), 543-545. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2112 Go to original source...
    30. Trevena, J., & Miller, J. (2010). Brain preparation before a voluntary action: evidence against unconscious movement initiation. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(1), 447-456. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2009.08.006 Go to original source...
    31. Tsuchiya, N., Wilke, M., Frässle, S., & Lamme, V. A. F. (2015). No-Report Paradigms: Extracting the True Neural Correlates of Consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(12), 757-770. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.10.002 Go to original source...
    32. Verbaarschot, C., Haselager, P., & Farquhar, J. (2019). Probing for Intentions: Why Clocks Do Not Provide the Only Measurement of Time. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13(March), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00068 Go to original source...
    33. Verbaarschot, C., Haselager, P., Farquhar, J., & Desain, P. (2015). Detecting traces of consciousness in the process of intending to act. Experimental Brain Research, 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4600-1 Go to original source...
    34. Winkielman, P., & Schooler, J. W. (2011). Splitting consciousness: Unconscious, conscious, and metaconscious processes in social cognition. European Review of Social Psychology, 22(1), 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2011.576580 Go to original source...

    Return to the content