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The extent to which high-level, complex functions can proceed unconsciously has been a topic of considerable debate. While unconscious processing has been demonstrated for a range of low-level processes, from feature integration to simple forms of conditioning and learning, theoretical contributions suggest that increasing complexity requires conscious access. Here, we focus our attention on instrumental conditioning, which has been previously shown to proceed without stimulus awareness. Yet, instrumental conditioning also involves integrating information over a large temporal scale and distinct modalities in order to deploy selective action, constituting a process of substantial complexity. With this in mind, we revisit the question of feasibility of instrumental conditioning in the unconscious domain. Firstly, we address the theoretical and practical considerations relevant to unconscious learning in general. Secondly, we aim to replicate the first study to show instrumental conditioning in the absence of stimulus awareness (Pessiglione et al., 2008), following the original design and supplementing the original crucial analyses with a Bayesian approach (Experiment 1). We found that apparent unconscious learning took place when replicating the original methods directly and according to the tests of awareness used. However, we could not establish that the full sample was unaware in a separate awareness check. We therefore attempted to replicate the effect yet again with improved methods to address the issues related to sensitivity and immediacy (Experiment 2), including an individual threshold-setting task and a trial-by-trial awareness check permitting exclusion of individual aware trials. Here, we found evidence for absence of unconscious learning. This result provides evidence that instrumental conditioning did not occur without stimulus awareness in this paradigm, supporting the view that complex forms of learning may rely on conscious access. Our results provides support for the proposal that perceptual consciousness may be necessary for complex, flexible processes, especially where selective action and behavioural adaptation are required.

New technologies are increasingly making it possible to colonize and inhabit realms previously deemed beyond-the-human. While airspace and maritime spaces feature particularly prominently in these larger geopolitical formations, subterranean spaces have not elicited the same levels of dynamism, anxiety, or excitement. Unlike air or water, subterranean spaces are often imagined to be static and inhibitive of movement, and are therefore less amenable to geopolitical mobilizations. Focusing precisely on this absence, the paper will look at the subterranean as spatial metaphor for what remains unspoken, unexplored, or forcibly repressed in geopolitical narratives. In doing so, the argument will touch upon nonhuman geographies, insularity, and the “monstrous” through two examples of subterranean sites, namely the UK/France Channel Tunnel and the Korean DMZ.

In today’s world, CEOs are frequently dismissed following corporate misconduct or poor performance. Yet, it is often difficult to predict when boards will dismiss the CEOs, as the same behavior often results in different decisions across firms. Taking a socio-cognitive perspective, this article explores the factors that lead a CEO to become tarnished. It then uses expectancy violation theory combined with attribution theory as well as stakeholder theory, concepts of legitimacy, and motivational theory to understand how the board evaluates the tarnished CEO. Given the increasing incidence of CEO dismissal, this paper provides an important contribution to both academic research and to corporate boards who face the responsibility of deciding how to respond to instances of poor firm performance and corporate misconduct.

The article interrogates Neil Walker’s theory of constitutional pluralism in order to bring out the importance of ideas for how we theorise the EU legal order. To that end, the article introduces two conceptual tools or prisms, the imaginary and the unconscious. The first part of the article situates Walker’s work in relation to the body of state-centric constitutional theory. It shows the steps Walker takes to attach his theory to past constitutionalisms, and it argues that the focus on theory leads him to blank out the question of state practice. The second part of the article considers the ideas and conceptual moves that pass from the body of constitutional theory to Walker’s theory. What the analysis brings into view is a stock of basic ideas, an imaginary around which Walker’s theory revolves. In the third part the article shows that the continuity between past and present formats of constitutional theory rests upon a determinate, and historically specific, intuition of political life. It argues that the changes Walker shall make to his theory can be explained in terms of the passing of a specific historical conjuncture, in which law could transcribe politics and keep economic rationality at bay.

Background While effective, exposure therapy can be distressing, which creates problems with treatment acceptance. Can exposure be effectively delivered unconsciously-and thus without causing phobic people to experience distress? No study has tested this hypothesis in a sufficiently rigorous experiment that selected between mechanisms for reducing fear unconsciously. Methods We conducted a psychophysiological experiment of an unconscious exposure intervention to discern its mechanism of therapeutic action. We identified 98 highly spider-phobic participants with a validated fear questionnaire and a Behavioral Avoidance Test in which they gradually approached and exhibited impairment of a live tarantula, which was indicative of a DSM-5 diagnosis of specific phobia. These participants were randomized to viewing unconscious exposure to spiders, visible exposure to spiders, or unconscious exposure to flowers (control). In a novel psychophysiological design, concurrent changes in sympathetic arousal and subjective fear were monitored throughout exposure. Shortly thereafter, phobic participants approached the tarantula again in order to measure exposure-induced changes in real-life avoidance behavior and experienced fear. Results Unconscious exposure did not induce concurrent changes in sympathetic arousal or subjective fear, and subsequently reduced fear of the tarantula. Visible exposure to the same phobic stimuli, by contrast, induced significant arousal and fear, but did not affect fear of the tarantula. Levels of arousal during exposure moderated effects on fear of the tarantula: lower arousal during unconscious exposure, but not during conscious exposure, predicted greater fear reduction. Conclusions Unconscious exposure reduces fear by generating new implicit learning of nonaversive, stimulus-response associations that facilitate fear extinction in phobic persons.

What does science tell us about memory phenomena such as false and repressed memories? This issue is highly pressing as incorrect knowledge about these memory phenomena might contribute to egregious effects in the courtroom such as false accusations of abuse. In the current article, we provide a succinct review of the scientific nature of false and repressed memories. We demonstrate that research has shown that about 30% of tested subjects formed false memories of autobiographical experiences. Furthermore, this empirical work has also revealed that such false memories can even be implanted for negative events and events that allegedly occurred repeatedly. Concerning the controversial topic of repressed memories, we show that plausible alternative explanations exist for why people claim to have forgotten traumatic experiences; explanations that do not require special memory mechanisms such as the unconscious blockage of traumatic memories. Finally, we demonstrate that people continue to believe that unconscious repression of traumatic incidents can exist. Disseminating scientifically articulated knowledge on the functioning of memory to contexts such as the courtroom is necessary as to prevent the occurrence of false accusations and miscarriages of justice. ispartof: MEMORY vol:30 issue:1 pages:16-21 ispartof: location:England status: published

Desensitization, the reduction of cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioral responses to a stimulus, is an automatic and unconscious phenomenon often experienced in everyday life. Exposure to violent media, especially violent video games, may cause desensitization to real-life violence. Desensitization to violence blocks empathy which is needed to trigger the moral reasoning process that triggers prosocial responding. Representative research was reviewed to examine links between exposure to violent video games and desensitization to violence in children and adolescents. It was concluded that exposure to violent video games increases the risk of desensitization to violence, which in turn may increase aggression and decrease prosocial behavior. Parents should be counseled to discuss the differences between real and screen violence, to encourage nonviolent problem-solving, and to provide empathy-building experiences for their children.

The objective of psychoanalysis is to help the analysand make the contents of his or her psyche conscious to him- or herself In this paper, the author identifies four tools central in the attempts to reach this goal: (1) the analysand's self- observation; (2) the analyst's assistance in identifying the obstacles to self-observation (i.e., resistance analysis); (3) the analysand's bringing unconscious contents into the sphere of self-observation with the help of the analyst's interpretations; (4) turning the analysand's tendency to account for the listener into an object of self-observation (i.e., the analysis of transference). Of these tools, the first is regarded as the most fundamental; all methodological instruments used in psychoanalysis aim at enhancing the scope of the analysand's self-observation. Some difficulties in keeping this aim are identified, and the analysand's autonomy in this work is pointed out, leading to the conclusion that the analysand never becomes changed in an analysis; the analy...

What is a dream? During wakefulness, the brain interprets information, stores memories, and uses knowledge to form and execute plans of action. In sleep, the brain continues these information processing functions of the waking brain. Throughout the night, and even during the deepest phases of slow-wave sleep, the sleeping brain replays past experiences, creates novel scenarios, and prepares us for the coming day. As during wakefulness, we become consciously aware of some portion of this cognitive activity, creating the thought and imagery that we call ‘dreaming.’ Once conceptualized as omens from the gods or messages from the unconscious mind, more recent approaches to dreaming have focused on the neural and psychological mechanisms that produce dream cognition. In particular, work describing the reactivation and consolidation of memory during sleep has been valuable in informing models of the psychology of dreaming. Here, we describe the current state of the psychology of dreaming and conclude that dreams may reflect the integration of recent experiences with our existing knowledge structures. This framework views dreaming as part of a continuum of spontaneous subjective experience spanning states of sleep and wakefulness and serving functions related to the evolution of memories, including the consolidation of existing memory, their associative linking to other, older memories, and the simulation of possible future events.

Unconscious state has been investigated in numerous studies so far, but pathophysiology of this state is not fully understood. Recently, combined transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) has been developed to allow for non-invasive assessment of neurophysiology in the cerebral cortex. We conducted a systematic literature search for TMS-EEG studies on human unconscious state using PubMed with cross-reference and manual searches. The initial search yielded 137 articles, and 19 of them were identified as relevant, including one article found by manual search. This review included 10 studies for unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS), 9 for minimally conscious states (MCS), 5 for medication-induced unconscious states, and 6 for natural non-rapid eye movement states. These studies analyzed TMS-evoked potential to calculate perturbational complexity index (PCI) and OFF-periods. In particular, PCI was found to be a potentially useful marker to differentiate between UWS and MCS. This review demonstrated that TMS-EEG could represent a promising neuroscientific tool to investigate various unconscious states. Further TMS-EEG research may help elucidate the neural basis of unconscious state.

In this essay, I work with transference as a relational dynamic from psychoanalysis, to analyze love and loss experienced through learning relationships. Transference is the unconscious transfer of...

Following Slavoj Žižek, critical marketing scholars have interrogated the ideological fantasies of mainstream marketing, de-romanticising markets and marketing. However, Žižek argues there is no ideology-free subject, so it stands to Žižekean reason that critical marketing scholars are also ideological fantasists. Our paper seeks to de-romanticise critical marketing theory by identifying the fantasy of capitalist corruption. This sustains the ideology of critical marketing theory by disavowing (self-)destructive desires within the human unconscious and suggesting that displacing capitalism will be enough to usher in a postcapitalist utopia. This ideological fantasy has therapeutic, motivational, and institutional benefits, but romanticises the human subject in ways that ultimately frustrate the critical project of societal betterment. By acknowledging the human unconscious as a corrupting influence, we hope to make critical aspirations more likely to be realised. We illustrate our argument via studies of sustainability, a favoured topic of Žižekean, critical, and mainstream scholars alike.

Haviva Pedaya’s book The Eye of the Cat presents an innovative theology of ecology, yet in correspondence with traditional Jewish-Kabbalistic sources. I discuss Pedaya’s ecopoetic reading of these sources, as well as her own midrashim in this regard. Pedaya raises questions regarding the place of man in the world; political questions regarding center and periphery; urbanization and nature; construction and destruction. These questions arise via the book’s unique poetic expression. Pedaya offers a theology of waste, addressing the place of garbage in the human sphere through the Kabbalistic idiom regarding the collection of qlipoth (“husks” ‮קליפות,‬‎). The Kabbalistic project of collecting the qlipoth, which previously functioned in the context of an esoteric and mostly secretive symbolic system, now takes on a different meaning in light of the real “husks” that demand to be collected and reused.

En el ámbito deportivo, las decisiones arbitrales siempre han estado bajo la lupa de los deportistas, directivos y espectadores, por tal motivo se mantiene en constante evaluación y entrenamiento el tema de reducir el error. Es necesario exponer que la toma de decisiones se puede generar bajo la influencia directa de las emociones, puesto que el proceso de respuestas emocionales es inconsciente y pueden interferir durante el desarrollo de diversas actividades, en este caso, a las relacionadas con el arbitraje. Por ello, se genera un prototipo de sensores en función a los parámetros fisiológicos de la temperatura corporal y la frecuencia cardiaca como patrones de expresión de diversos estados emocionales de este grupo de deportistas, y a base de la representación del modelo de afectividad positiva y negativa, se identifica el estado o cambios de estados emocionales durante la ejecución de un partido. Luego, con uso del material audiovisual se realiza, con criterio de expertos, el análisis de toma de decisiones de los participantes en estas pruebas. Los árbitros participantes, en las pruebas de campo, se les registra con mayor frecuencia dos estados relacionados con valencia positiva y solo un estado de valencia negativa, sin embargo, en la mayoría de los casos, en el análisis de datos se observa que la toma de decisiones se alinea correctamente con el reglamento.

The article describes the study of Hebrew by Alexander Arguelles, one of the outstanding polyglots of our time. The monitoring results demonstrate that the polyglot himself is not always aware of his effective strategies of learning the language. For example, the active use of sensory-motor input of new language information was identified as one of the unconscious language acquisition strategies.

SYNOPSIS This article reports on an experimental examination of rationalizations among CPAs. Rationalizations represent the cognitive justifications that individuals use to morally disengage their internal norms. While related research in accounting is scant, there is extensive, relevant, non-accounting research. That research distinguishes between “before-the-decision” and “after-the-decision” rationalizing, labeling the former “neutralizations” and the latter “rationalizations.” Unfortunately, confusion exists because the professional accounting literature related to the Fraud Triangle does not reflect the neutralization versus rationalization distinction. We find that neutralizations exposure increases CPAs' unethical intentions despite cautions against doing so. This result is robust to two different morally intense and practically relevant ethical cases. We also find that the influence of neutralizations exposure is unconscious and robust among Millennials and Gen Xers, but not among Baby Boomers.

A cross-sectional study performed in a Moscow hospital for addiction treatment (2019—2020) tested a hypothesis that the capacity to reflect on a life script exert¬ed a positive effect on alcohol dependence (AD) remission duration. The sample included 61 males with AD and without dual diagnosis; the mean age was 44.1 (SD = 10.1) years. Methods. (1) Socio-demographic and clinical data was collected using a semi-structured therapeutic interview. (2) Explicit representations of one’s future were evaluated using a Self-defining Future Projections task; “Life Line”, and a “Cultural script” task. (3) Data on life script characteristics was gathered using the semi-structured “Script Questionnaire”. Qualitative data was processed by means of quantitative content analysis performed by experts based on relevant guidelines. Effects of verbalized life script characteristics on several remission parameters were assessed using multiple linear regression. Results and Conclusions. People with AD who were capable of verbalizing and reflecting on long-term, self-relevant repre¬sentations of the future related to the basic beliefs about their own life course, were capable of maintaining longer remissions in contrast to those who failed to reflect on these topics and limited their memories and future projections by overgeneral cultural script events.

Il problema dell'inconscio nella psicologia moderna [The problem of the unconscious in modern psychology], published in 1942, was the first of Jung's books translated into Italian. The original German title was Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart [Soul's problems of the future], a collection of previously-issued short essays. The present paper reconstructs the story of how the book was chosen and eventually published, describing the historical and personal context surrounding the protagonists (translators and publisher) of the volume. The political and cultural situation of the time in Italy is presented: the country was dominated by Catholic culture and Idealism, both obstacles to the spread of psychology. The condition of Italy is compared with that of Germany with respect to the possibility of Freud's and Jung's ideas circulating. Then the paper describes the specific context in which Giovanni Bollea, who had the idea of translating Jung's book in Italy, worked. The role of Bollea's wife, Renata Jesi, is also highlighted. Bollea's relationship with the Einaudi publishing house and with Jung is also explained. Finally, an attempt is made to show the relevance of this episode in the history of Italian culture and its consequences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Study design Observational cross-sectional study. Objectives To determine the differences between persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) and control individuals in terms of conscious and unconscious sexual responses to subliminally presented visual sexual stimuli. Setting Spinal cord injury rehabilitation center in northern Italy. Methods A two-part behavioral experiment was conducted on 40 participants (27 individuals with SCI; 13 controls). In first part, all participants were subliminally exposed to a prime picture (neutral or sexual) and asked to rate the extent to which they were emotionally aroused, while watching a set of explicit target pictures (neutral or sexual). In the second part, choice reaction time task was employed, wherein participants were shown a subliminal prime picture (neutral or sexual) followed by an explicit target picture (neutral or sexual) superimposed by a black dot and were asked to locate the dot as fast as possible. Results In the first part, men with SCI reported higher levels of emotional arousal to explicit sexual target pictures compared to other groups. In the second part, slower choice reaction times were found in the SCI group, particularly with sexual prime picture. Moreover, females with SCI spent more time during implicit motor learning tasks with sexual target pictures than other groups. Conclusion We found differences in the experience of subliminal and explicit sexual pictures not only between the two groups, but also between females and males with SCI. Attention should thus be paid when considering sexual experience at subliminal and conscious level in SCI population for future research and rehabilitative protocols.