Interpreting the Present: The Basic Task of Long-Term Memory
It is always perplexing to comprehend the ability of the human brain, but it may be even more shocking to realize that it must do all this work in real…
The Illusion of Pure Sensation and Reality of Interpretation
Some people claim to mistrust their senses, calling it all an illusion with Cartesian enthusiasm. You may have thought these people were a little crazy. Or you may have agreed…
Affect Is the Engine of Perception
I have previously written about how attention functions to direct senses to novel or unpredictable things that we may need to react to. Attention focuses on a section of the…
Learning and Overlooking: Attention’s Role in Creating Our Unconscious Perceptions
In this media-based era, attention has been something that we have struggled to control. With all the powerful and provocative imagery of overly convenient media and entertainment, it is no…
Opening Subjectivity: Consciousness as the Relationship Between Feeling and Perceiving
What is Consciousness? Our whole means of existence is the ability to perceive and navigate through the real world, thus enabling survival and physical existence through evolutionary time. Humans never…
Projecting Attention: Discovering How We See the World by Creating It
Attention, like action, can follow two different modes. Sometimes our attention is reactive, and sometimes our attention is searching for something. When we automatically react to a stimulus, our attention…
Contiguity: From Perception to Idea (and to Life Itself)
The way our consciousness works is to hold some object in its spotlight but with tendrils that extend to make the next conscious thought come more readily to mind. This…
The Persistence of Self and the Presence of No-Self
A large part of our behaviors and thoughts hinges upon what we call “the self.” This vague concept includes everything we think we are, will be, and have been, but…
We Are Social Even When No One Sees: The Benefit of Free-Association Journaling
Something happens when we are alone; or rather, something which seems like it should change, doesn’t. It may seem banal, but in this conversation lies so much regarding our psychology.…
Wearing an Honest Mask: How Thoughtful Self-Display Creates a New Truth
It’s easy to categorize people into two groups: some of us scoff when we see others put on “fake” personas to get people to like them, and some of us,…