How to operationalise consciousness
Objective To review the way consciousness is operationalised in contemporary research, discuss strengths and weaknesses of current approaches and propose new measures. Method We first reviewed the literature pertaining to the phenomenal character of visual and self‐consciousness as well as awareness...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Group
2019-12-01
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| Series: | Australian Journal of Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12264 |
| _version_ | 1797681629633708032 |
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| author | Glenn Carruthers Sidney Carls‐diamante Linus Huang Melanie Rosen Elizabeth Schier |
| author_facet | Glenn Carruthers Sidney Carls‐diamante Linus Huang Melanie Rosen Elizabeth Schier |
| author_sort | Glenn Carruthers |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Objective To review the way consciousness is operationalised in contemporary research, discuss strengths and weaknesses of current approaches and propose new measures. Method We first reviewed the literature pertaining to the phenomenal character of visual and self‐consciousness as well as awareness of visual stimuli. We also reviewed more problematic cases of dreams and animal consciousness, specifically that of octopuses. Results Despite controversies, work in visual and self‐consciousness is highly developed and there are notable successes. Cases where experiences are not induced, such as dreams, and where no verbal report is possible, such as when we study purported experiences of octopuses, are more challenging. It is difficult to be confident about the reliability and validity of operationalisations of dreams. Although this is a general concern about the measuring consciousness, it is not a sufficiently severe concern to completely undermine the work reviewed on vision and self‐consciousness. It is more difficult to see how the good work on human psychology can be applied to non‐human animals, especially those with radically different nervous systems, such as octopuses. Given the limitations of report‐based operationalisations of consciousness, it is desirable to develop non‐report‐based measures, particularly for phenomenal qualities. We examine a number of possibilities and offer two possible approaches of varying degrees of practicality, the first based on combining quality space descriptions of phenomenal qualities and the notion of a “neural activation space” inherited from connectionist A.I., the second being a novel match to target approach. Conclusion Consciousness is a multi‐faceted phenomenon and requires a variety of operationalisations to be studied. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T23:47:38Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0cf6b70e1bd14208bd85094423102acb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0004-9530 1742-9536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T23:47:38Z |
| publishDate | 2019-12-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Australian Journal of Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-0cf6b70e1bd14208bd85094423102acb2023-09-19T08:54:47ZengTaylor & Francis GroupAustralian Journal of Psychology0004-95301742-95362019-12-0171439041010.1111/ajpy.1226412098951How to operationalise consciousnessGlenn Carruthers0Sidney Carls‐diamante1Linus Huang2Melanie Rosen3Elizabeth Schier4Charles Sturt UniversityKonrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition ResearchUniversity of California at San Diego, CA & Institute of European and American Studies, Academia SinicaAarhus UniversityAustralia and Department of Philosophy, Macquarie UniversityObjective To review the way consciousness is operationalised in contemporary research, discuss strengths and weaknesses of current approaches and propose new measures. Method We first reviewed the literature pertaining to the phenomenal character of visual and self‐consciousness as well as awareness of visual stimuli. We also reviewed more problematic cases of dreams and animal consciousness, specifically that of octopuses. Results Despite controversies, work in visual and self‐consciousness is highly developed and there are notable successes. Cases where experiences are not induced, such as dreams, and where no verbal report is possible, such as when we study purported experiences of octopuses, are more challenging. It is difficult to be confident about the reliability and validity of operationalisations of dreams. Although this is a general concern about the measuring consciousness, it is not a sufficiently severe concern to completely undermine the work reviewed on vision and self‐consciousness. It is more difficult to see how the good work on human psychology can be applied to non‐human animals, especially those with radically different nervous systems, such as octopuses. Given the limitations of report‐based operationalisations of consciousness, it is desirable to develop non‐report‐based measures, particularly for phenomenal qualities. We examine a number of possibilities and offer two possible approaches of varying degrees of practicality, the first based on combining quality space descriptions of phenomenal qualities and the notion of a “neural activation space” inherited from connectionist A.I., the second being a novel match to target approach. Conclusion Consciousness is a multi‐faceted phenomenon and requires a variety of operationalisations to be studied.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12264consciousnessoperationalisationself‐consciousnessvisiondreamsoctopus consciousness |
| spellingShingle | Glenn Carruthers Sidney Carls‐diamante Linus Huang Melanie Rosen Elizabeth Schier How to operationalise consciousness Australian Journal of Psychology consciousness operationalisation self‐consciousness vision dreams octopus consciousness |
| title | How to operationalise consciousness |
| title_full | How to operationalise consciousness |
| title_fullStr | How to operationalise consciousness |
| title_full_unstemmed | How to operationalise consciousness |
| title_short | How to operationalise consciousness |
| title_sort | how to operationalise consciousness |
| topic | consciousness operationalisation self‐consciousness vision dreams octopus consciousness |
| url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12264 |
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