Research Digest

“Do you ever wonder if the guy in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?”

What relation exists between objects in the world and the way that these objects are modeled by our minds? The representational theory of mind proposes that our experience of objects within the world is mediated through mental representations—that is, mental symbols that stand for each object or idea. The idea of mental representations is explored in this digest through research in psychology, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis. The internal representation of our bodies and how this constructs subjective experience is examined by David et al. on the feeling of agency and Pyka et al. on the neural basis for hypnotic paralysis; while how the actions of others are represented in our brain is covered by Glenberg et al. on mirror neurons. The representational qualities of our memories and how this may be affected by modern technology is examined by Sparrow et al. on the “Google effect”; and the interaction between cultural representations and individual behavior is investigated in terms of gender by Alanko et al. on gender-atypical behavior and in terms of social ills and mental disorder by Morgan on reification and schizophrenia.

David, N., Stenzel, A., Schneider, T. R., & Engel, A. K. (2011). The feeling of agency: Empirical indicators for a pre-reflective level of action awareness.  Frontiers in Psychology,  2 (149):  1-8.

The concept of the feeling of agency is of interest given its status as an object of research in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and phenomenology. The sense of being an agent of an action is so inherent to human experience that it is difficult to imagine its loss or destructuring. Excepting simple reflexive actions, such as your leg jerking when a tendon is struck on the knee, our feeling of agency is deep-rooted and inherent. It is thus hard to comprehend the experiences reported by some people with psychosis of feeli