Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
927991 Consciousness and Cognition 2006 12 Pages PDF
Abstract

This essay discusses how the organisation of mental material within the cognitive system can influence consciousness and awareness, and presents a theory of dissociation based on the premise that awareness is relative, contingent on the activated representation of the ongoing event being linked to the activated self-representation. It allows four possible variations of integration: (i) non-integrated experience—perceptions about an object/event are either not perceived or they remain at the sensory level: traditional dissociative states, amnesia, depersonalisation etc; (ii) variably integrated experience—activation of information of a specific valence about an object blocks activation of information of contrasting valence: splitting; (iii) alternatively integrated experience—experience is integrated into a specific, limited active self-representation: fugue and multiple identity states; (iv) dis-integrated experience–the ongoing experience of innate drives and needs is no longer consistently activated in the core self-representation: repression and isolation.

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Life Sciences Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience
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