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Title: Surprise in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis
This short article is divided into two parts. The first part explains how the concept of »surprise« is understood in theoretical neuroscience today. The second part shows how remarkably closely the modern neuroscientific conception of the brain maps onto Freud’s classical metapsychological model of the mind. It shows also how the modern concepts expand upon some of Freud’s original concepts. The essential mechanism of surprise is that it reduces confidence in an existing belief about the world, and that this brings the belief in question to consciousness. However, special considerations apply to repressed unconscious beliefs.
The full text is available in German.