Neuropsychological and experimental explorations of conscious and unconscious control of behavior

Dissociations of conscious and unconscious stimulus processing and stimulus coding is a major research topic in cognitive neuropsychology and experimental psychology. This paper presents a selection of experimental results showing such dissociations, On the basis of these results a specific perspective on the terms conscious and unconscious is proposed. The central assumptions underlying this perspective are: (1) Behavior is to a large extent controlled by unconscious stimulus processing and coding. (2) The experimental analysis of conscious and unconscious processing requires operational definitions of the concepts conscious and unconscious from a third person perspective. These definitions are in terms of experimental tasks and instructions. (3) Certain types of sensory information are necessary, but not sufficient to induce conscious information processing. (4) Conscious information processing is a function of the necessary sensory information and the access of output systems to this information. From a third person perspective sensory information might be accessible for one output system, but not for the other. (5) The behavioral effects of a sensory analysis depend on a certain mode of processing. The term mode refers to the consistency of information in the different output systems. Behavior might be controlled by highly consistent processing results over different output systems or by a processing result in a single output system. Phenomenal awareness in the sense of a first person perspective might depend on highly consistent results in the available output systems.