A fine line between our unconscious and conscious mind

           There is a lot of debate about how much of our unconscious mind participates in our ability to make decisions or process information before we become aware of these thoughts. Megan Gannon wrote about this topic in the article: “The Unconscious Brain Can Do Math,” where participants were exposed to a phrase to one eye and flashing colors and shapes to the other eye. This served as a distraction/control to determine the length of time it took the person to become aware of what the words in the phrase were. The reaction was measured by the amount of time it took for the participants to push a button once they realized the words. They concluded that unusual sentences that don’t typically make sense were registered faster than those that did make sense. For instance, “I cooked a child.” would be registered at a faster rate than “ I cooked dinner.” The surprising phrases stood out more because they are not something people are used to reading and therefore people are capable of realizing the words faster.

            The second part of this study involved the unconscious mind “performing” math problems. Similar to the technique listed previously (using a distraction in one eye and a focused stimulus in the other), the experimenter presented a sequence of numbers for less than 3 seconds that resembled a math problem, for example, “6-2-3.” After this, a number would be presented, without the distractions in the other eye, to the participant to read out loud. The experimenter concluded that the correct answer to the equation was read much faster than other numbers presented. For the example above, “6-2-3,” the number “1” would have been processed faster and said out loud more quickly than any other number. These results led the experimenters to conclude that the participants were subconsciously solving the problem in their head without knowing it was an actual equation. This led them to be able to recognize and speak the number that answered the equation faster.

            The experiment reflects the concept/question of how or when our subconscious is involved in our thoughts. A study mentioned in the chapter “Feeling your Way to Knowledge” in The Ravenous Brain by Daniel Bor addresses this same issue. Bor mentions a study that shows participants sets of random letters, as opposed to structured sentences, that are supposed to be memorized. After this, the participant is informed that the sets followed certain rules but the rules remained unknown. They were then exposed to new sets of letters and had to respond saying that they followed or did not follow the rules. Most people believe that they would be guessing but the studies resulted with people getting a good number of answers correct. Both studies mentioned by Bor and by Gannon represent the initial claims that our unconscious mind is capable of making connections between two stimuli prior to us becoming aware, or conscious, of it. However, as mentioned in The Ravenous Brain, the conscious is always looking for patterns and the potential meaning of whatever is presented to us. These thoughts can dissipate when trying to accomplish a task. In the instance of the Gannon study, the conscious brain probably saw the sequence of numbers as an equation without being told it was mathematical because it could make the connection of the “-“ to a minus sign in subtraction equations that the brain has been previously exposed to. Since the participant was not instructed that it was a math equation, that thought was pushed aside when they had to focus on the next task of calling out numbers. Due to the fact that this thought was present causes the person to react faster to the answer of the equation rather than an unrelated number. It was easier for the brain to recall a number that already was present consciously but ignored.

            Bor mentions that one cannot deny that conscious learning is present in these studies, so it is a combination of our unconscious mind and our phenomenal consciousness that make these connections between the stimuli. In order for us to learn and recognize patterns in such depth requires our consciousness whether we are aware of it happening or not.   

References:

Gannon, M. (2012, November 15). The unconscious brain can do math. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unconscious-brain-can-do-math/

Bor, D. (2012).The Ravenous Brain: How the new science of consciousness explains our insatiable search for meaning. New York: Basic Books.