Experience of Mental Control

精神控制经验

• 批准号: 6574579
• 负责人: DANIEL M WEGNER
• 金额: $ 28.53万
• 依托单位: HARVARD UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-06-01 至 2008-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6574579
• 关键词: behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; cognition; consciousness; human subject; locus of control; mind control; obsessive compulsive disorder; self concept

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Effective personal adaptation and social life depend on our ability to discern our own actions and thoughts from those of others. This is not always a simple discrimination, and it is fortunate that our own actions and thoughts are usually marked with a unique feeling, an experience of conscious will. This feeling separates our actions and thoughts from those that seem to have been done or thought by others or caused by events in the world. This research tests a theory of apparent mental causation, which suggests that this experience of conscious will arises when we infer that our thoughts have caused our actions. According to this theory, we are likely to experience conscious will for what we do when we have thoughts that are consistent with what we do, when these thoughts occur just before what we do, and when other potential causes of what we do are not obvious to us. These principles of consistency, priority, and exclusivity suggest why and when people might experience conscious will erroneously--feeling that they controlled an action, for example, when they did not, or feeling that they did not perform an action when in fact they did. Seventeen studies examine conditions that create these illusions by testing the role of these principles in the experience of conscious will. They focus on this experience in everyday actions, as well as in laboratory settings that allow the precise determination of the influence of the principles. Some of the studies test the principles in the case of the vicarious experience of will for the actions of others, and others examine how these principles can yield an understanding of unwilled actions. A final set of studies explores the relationship between processes of action production and processes underlying the experience of will. One such study investigates a clinical application of the theory by assessing how patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder can be influenced to understand their own mental control processes, and so to reduce the intrusive thoughts and unwilled actions that are symptoms of this disorder.

描述（由申请人提供）：有效的个人适应和社会生活取决于我们区分自己和他人行为和思想的能力。这并不总是一种简单的区别，幸运的是，我们自己的行动和思想通常都带有一种独特的感觉，一种有意识意志的体验。这种感觉将我们的行为和思想与那些似乎是别人做的或想的或由世界上的事件引起的行为和思想区分开来。这项研究测试了一种明显的心理因果理论，该理论表明，当我们推断我们的思想导致了我们的行为时，这种有意识的体验就会出现。根据这一理论，当我们的想法与我们的行为一致时，当这些想法恰好在我们的行为之前出现时，当我们的行为的其他潜在原因对我们来说并不明显时，我们很可能会对我们所做的事情经历有意识的意志。这些一致性、优先性和排他性原则表明了人们为什么以及何时会错误地体验有意识的意志——例如，当他们没有控制一个动作时，他们会感觉自己控制了一个动作，或者当他们实际上执行了一个动作时，他们会感觉自己没有执行。17项研究通过测试这些原则在有意识意志体验中的作用来检验产生这些幻觉的条件。他们关注的是日常行动中的这种经验，以及在实验室环境中可以精确确定原则影响的经验。其中一些研究在他人行为的意愿替代经验的情况下测试了这些原则，另一些研究则检验了这些原则如何产生对非意愿行为的理解。最后一组研究探讨了行动产生过程和意志经验背后的过程之间的关系。其中一项研究调查了该理论的临床应用，评估了如何影响强迫症患者，让他们了解自己的精神控制过程，从而减少作为强迫症症状的侵入性想法和非自愿行为。