Do we have access to our own mental processes? High-‐level v. low ...

Do we have access to our own mental
processes?
High-­‐level v. low-­‐level processes:
Widespread agreement that we do not have
direct introspective access to the workings
of low-­‐level processes (perception,
memory).
But what about processes involved in
judgment, choice, inference, and problem-­‐
solving?

People freely offer reports on the
workings of their high-­‐level mental
processes. Why do they do this, if they
have no direct access to the high-­‐level
processes?
If the anti-­‐introspectionist is correct,
how could we ever get it right when we
report on our own high-­‐level mental
processes?

Subjects detect a gap between what
they’ve done and what they have
justification for doing, and adjust their
attitudes or beliefs about what they’ve
done so as to reduce this gap.
Subjects given the electric shocks with
no justification performed better on
the simultaneous learning task and had
lower galvanic skin response.

Hypothesis: The subjects were aware,
on some level, that they were accepting
shocks for no good reason and so
“decided” that the shocks were not so
painful after all (otherwise, why would
they be accepting them?).
This “decision” had concrete effects,
both cognitive (their improved
learning) and physiological (their skin
responses).

Appears to be little correlation between
the verbal reports (when collected) on
the internal processes and measurable
results (other than verbal report).
In the extreme case, subjects’ reports did
not change across conditions in which
there was significant behavioral change
(other than the verbal report). This is
what happened in the shocked-­‐while-­‐
learning experiment.

Sometimes subjects’ reports are
correlated with the relevant behavioral
results (change or no change).
But in some cases, subjects’ reports did
not change across conditions in which
there was significant behavioral change
(other than the verbal report). In the
shocked-­‐while-­‐learning experiment, the
subjects with insufficient justification
didn’t report feeling any less pain.

Distinguish between cases in which subjects
report only an attitude correlated with the
measurable behavioral change
and
Cases in which the subjects also report that
there was a change.
Of the two, only the latter is evidence that the
subjects were aware of the cognitive processes
by which the change was effected.

Subjects report their attitudes on an issue of social
or political importance, then are asked to write an
essay advocating the opposing view.
Some of them are given sufficient justification;
some are not.
Those given insufficient justification not only
change their reported attitudes, but they also
claim that their new attitude was the same as their
original one! They seem to have no awareness of
the change process. (This kind of thing occurs
even when the subjects are told that the
experimenters recorded the originally reported
attitude and have the record at hand.)

Fundamental Attribution Error:
jumping to the conclusion that a
person’s behavior was caused by
their relatively stable character or
personality traits.
General idea of attribution is that
we attribute personality traits to
ourselves or others as a way of
explaining or interpreting
individuals’ behavior.

Self-­‐professed snake-­‐o-­‐phobes are shown slides of
snakes interspersed with slides that say ‘shock’. After
every ‘shock’ slide, a shock is administered.
All the while, subjects hear a sound recording of
thumpings that happen to speed up when, and only
when, the shock slides are shown.
Experimental group is told that the thumpings are the
output of a heart monitor (control group told that
they are simply incidental noises).
Members of the experimental group are more willing
to approach snakes after conclusion of the
experiment.

Members of the experimental group seem to
reason that they must not really be afraid of
snakes, given that their heart rate increases
only when they see the ‘shock’ slides, not when
they see snake slides.
They then attribute the personality trait “not
being afraid of snakes” to themselves, and they
act accordingly.
Nevertheless, there was no evidence that the
experimental subjects were aware of this
process. They verbally reported the same level
of fear of snakes after the experiment as before.

Subjects exposed to a series of increasingly
strong shocks.
Experimental subjects given (what is
actually) a placebo pill. They were told that
the pill would produce “anxiety” symptoms,
i.e., the kind of physical symptoms
associated with fear of upcoming shocks.
Experimental subjects were willing to take
four times as much amperage as control
subjects.

When subjects are asked, point blank, about
their reasons for taking so much more shock,
they confabulate or hem and haw, but show no
sign of having been aware of the role of their
beliefs about the pill or the pill’s relation to
anxiety symptoms.
Results of the “insomniac” experiments are the
same. Subjects are given open-­‐ended
opportunity to explain the experimental
results, but show no awareness of it, and even
deny that anyone would have gone through
such a process (once the experiment is
explained).

Helping behavior
Word-­‐pair association effects (third-­‐person
reports match introspection)
Position effects
Anchoring (even though it sometimes has an
effect and sometimes not, subjects reported a
moderate effect across the board)
Personality, mannerisms, and accent

Inclusion or exclusion of passages
(third-­‐person reports are equally off
base).
Noise and focus of films.
Predicted tolerance for shocks and “no
permanent damage” (third-­‐person
results are the same).

Subjects often do not report the
occurrence of the operative stimulus,
do not report the effect that occurred,
who are aware of the stimuli and the
effect, don’t recognize that the former
caused the latter,
or, can’t report the cognitive
processing that occurred on the way
from cause to effect.

Subjects don’t want to look silly
Response: But many of the experiments involve
non-­‐ego-­‐involving subject matter or third-­‐
person estimates that correspond to first-­‐
person ones.
It’s merely bad memory.
Response: Perhaps, but the questions in these
studies are often asked minutes or only
seconds after the process in question has
occurred. So, even if we have some access
while the process is occurring, it’s not very
helpful.

Subjects are asked to tie the two ropes together.
When they get stumped, the experimenter swings
one of the ropes, which has a significant effect –
giving the subjects the idea to tie a weight to one
of the ropes and swing it.
Sometimes a bad cue is included (experimenter
ties a weight to a rope and twirls it).
When both cues are included and subjects are
asked which one did the trick, they choose the
wrong one, but the one that might be implied by
an everyday “theory” of how minds work.

When reporting the effects of stimuli on
behavior, subjects employ causal theories –
generalizations of the form “this kind of
thing causes that kind of thing.” (Ignore the
authors’ use of ‘a priori’.)
Subjects can report accurately, because
sometimes these theories are on target. But
that’s not the same as having direct access
to the processes in question and reporting
accurately on the basis of such access.

Cultural influence (either explicit or
implicit)
Individual learning (about oneself or
others)
Evolutionary endowment (that is, the
theories may be innate)?

Five factors of job applicant (for position as
counselor) manipulated: physical attractiveness,
academic credentials, having spilled coffee on
interviewer, having been in a serious auto accident,
and being someone the subject will meet.
Subjects are asked to say how much they liked her,
how sympathetic she’d be to clients, how intelligent,
how flexible.
Then subjects are asked how much the five factors
affected their four evaluations.

Observers are also asked to say how much the five
factors would affect the four evaluations.
Their responses were highly correlated with the subjects’
responses concerning the effect of the five factors.
Moreover, the only case about which the subjects and
(independently agreeing) observers were both right was
when asked which factors affected the intelligence
evaluation.
As N&W see things, the case of intelligence is the only
case in which there is a widely accepted, culturally
inherited theory telling us which factors are relevant.