{"id":2113,"date":"2012-05-17T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2012-05-16T14:54:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-16T12:54:49","slug":"new-horizons-in-the-neuroscience-of-consciousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=2113","title":{"rendered":"New horizons in the neuroscience of consciousness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;\"><strong>New horizons in the neuroscience of consciousness<\/strong>. Ed. by<strong> Elain K. Perry<\/strong>, <strong>Daniel Collerton<\/strong>, <strong>Fiona E. N. LeBeau<\/strong>,<strong> <\/strong>and<strong> Heather Ashton<\/strong>. (Advances in consciousness research 79.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2010. Pp. xxv, 330. ISBN <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/new-horizons-in-the-neuroscience-of-consciousness\/oclc\/624030961&amp;referer=brief_results\">9789027252159<\/a>. $149 (Hb).<\/div>\n<p align=\"right\">Reviewed by <strong>Peter Tunstall<\/strong>, <em>Chicago<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This collection offers a rich, multidisciplinary cross-section of current thinking on the notoriously elusive subject of consciousness, with a particular focus on conscious\/non-conscious interactions.<\/p>\n<p>Contributions are distributed among four sections: \u2018Neuronal mechanisms\u2019, \u2018Psychological processes\u2019, \u2018Psychopathologies and therapies\u2019, and \u2018Expanding boundaries\u2019. The first deals with brain chemistry and anatomy, connections, and synchronization; topics include gamma oscillations, general anesthesia, and the role of the endocannabinoid system in mediating the unconscious processes that underlie conscious moods. The second contains discussions of memory (implicit and explicit), social consciousness, lucid dreaming, and what magicians can teach us about attention and visual awareness. The third includes chapters on depression, dementia, schizophrenia, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) use, and the placebo effect, and the final part explores creativity, psi phenomena, and self-induced altered states of consciousness, such as those induced by meditation and the use of entheogens. The emphasis is toward the empirical rather than the philosophical strand of consciousness studies.<\/p>\n<p>Two chapters deal explicitly with linguistic issues. In \u2018Consciousness and language: A processing perspective\u2019, <strong>Michael Sharwood Smith<\/strong> and <strong>John Truscott<\/strong> propose that \u2018some linguistic processes are inherently unconscious while others can be conscious or not\u2019 (129). Drawing on Bernard J. Baars\u2019s global workspace model of consciousness and Ray Jackendoff\u2019s intermediate-level theory, they contrast functions of the language module itself, which never reach activation levels sufficient for consciousness, with on extramodular linguistic knowledge, which includes conceptual representations (unconscious) and perceptual representations (conscious): \u2018processing within the language module is entirely unconscious but nevertheless relies on conscious perceptual processes to provide its input and leaves conscious footprints in the form of the voice in the head\u2019 (135). While much of this is plausible, one may question whether linguistic consciousness is wholly accounted for as a \u2018set of perceptual blackboards, each representing the ultimate output of a sensory system\u2019 (133). There is more to conscious thought than subvocalization.<\/p>\n<p>In \u2018Consciousness as the spin-off and schizophrenia as the price of language\u2019, <strong>Timothy J. Crow<\/strong> attributes schizophrenia to developmental defects associated with hemispheric asymmetry. These defects, he proposes, lead to a kind of \u2018aberrant transmission (backflow)\u2019 (193) between the four quadrants of the cortex, resulting in pathologies of language and self-awareness. While the link between schizophrenia and lateralization abnormalities is supported by post-mortem studies (194), it seems something of a leap to identify the right hemisphere as the seat of reflexive consciousness. Because pre-psychotic children show language impairments (195), and schizophrenia is seen as an \u2018illness of the self\u2019 (197, quoting Maxim I. Stamenov), he concludes that language is crucial to a sense of self: \u2018the components of language fall apart, and consciousness fragments\u2019 (197). Some acknowledgement of non-psychotic aphasias would be in order here; how are we to account for the apparent persistence of self-awareness in these cases?<\/p>\n<p>It is impossible to do justice in so small a space to the range of topics covered here and to the inventiveness of ideas displayed. While this book offers neither consensus nor closure on the nature of consciousness, it provides much food for thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New horizons in the neuroscience of consciousness. Ed. by Elain K. Perry, Daniel Collerton, Fiona E. N. LeBeau, and Heather Ashton. (Advances in consciousness research 79.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2010. Pp. xxv, 330. ISBN 9789027252159. $149 (Hb). Reviewed by Peter Tunstall, Chicago This collection offers a rich, multidisciplinary cross-section of current thinking on the notoriously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2114,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions\/2114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}