Experimental Philosophy of Consciousness at Consciousness Online

I currently have a multimedia presentation up as part of the Consciousness Online conference. The title of the talk is "Folk Psychology and Phenomenal Consciousness" and it can be viewed, along with a commentary by Adam Arico, here. In the talk I present the results of four new studies exploring whether non-philosophers are generally naïve realists. I focus on two cases, one where many have thought that they are (colors) and one where most have thought that they are not (pains). The setup and results for the studies are given below (for framing and discussion, see the talk).

Study 1:

To test whether non-philosophers hold a naïve realist view of colors I gave 52 subjects a brief paragraph introducing them to the philosophical disputes concerning colors. They were then asked four questions (counterbalanced for order):

1. Do you think that a ripe tomato would still be red even if there was nobody around to see it?

2. Do you think that the red you see when you look at a ripe tomato is in your mind?

3. Do you think that the red you see when you look at a ripe tomato is in the tomato?

4. Do you think it is possible that somebody else might actually see the color that you call “blue” when they look at an ordinary ripe tomato, despite having normal visual acuity (i.e., without being color-blind)?

Each question was answered on a 7-point scale anchored at 1 with “clearly no,” at 4 with “not sure,” and at 7 with “clearly yes.” High answers to questions 1 and 3, and low answers to questions 2 and 4, follow the naïve view of colors. The mean response for the first and third questions were significantly above the neutral point of 4 (M=5.92, SD=1.98, p<0.001; M=4.88, SD=1.67, p<0.001), while the mean response for the second and fourth questions were significantly below 4 (M=3.27, SD=1.98, p=0.010; M=3.19, SD=2.16, p=0.009):

Study 2:

In Study 2, 56 subjects were given a description of a situation in which, on the naïve view, it would be natural to hold that a pain existed unfelt. Subjects were asked:

It is common for people who have been badly injured and are in ongoing pain to report being distracted from the pain by an interesting conversation, an intense movie, or a good book. Afterwards, the person will often reflect that for a period of time they hadn’t noticed any pain at all! In such a situation, do you think that the injured person still had the pain and was just not feeling it at the moment? Or, that there was no pain during that period?

They answered on a 7-point scale anchored at 1 with “clearly in pain, but not feeling it,” at 4 with “not sure,” and at 7 with “clearly not in pain.”

The average response was 2.54, indicating that contrary to the philosophical consensus, the subjects surveyed hold that pains can exist unfelt. Planned analysis showed that the mean response was significantly different from 4 (SD=1.66; p<0.001).

Study 3:

If non-philosophers hold a naïve view of pains we would also expect them to say that pains can be shared, at least in those atypical cases in which a body part is shared. My third and fourth studies presented subjects with descriptions of two such cases and asked them whether the numerically identical pain was felt by two different people. In Study 3, 41 subjects were given the following two scenarios in sequence, counterbalanced for order:

Henry and Johnny are normal undergraduates at a state university. They are distinct people with their own beliefs and desires. One day they were participating in a three-legged race in a park with Henry’s right leg tied to Johnny’s left leg. While running toward the finish line their “third-leg” forcefully kicked a large rock that, unbeknownst to them, was hidden in the grass. Henry and Johnny both grimaced and shouted out “Ouch!”

Bobby and Robby are conjoined twins that are joined at the torso. While they are distinct people, each with their own beliefs and desires, they share the lower half of their body. One day while running through a park they forcefully kicked a large rock that, unbeknownst to them, was hidden in the grass. Bobby and Robby both grimaced and shouted out “Ouch!”

After each vignette, subjects were asked whether the runners felt one and the same pain or two different pains. They answered on a 7-point scale anchored at 1 with “clearly same pain,” at 4 with “not sure,” and at 7 with “clearly different pains.”

The mean responses were significantly different (p<0.001), with the mean for the three-legged race scenario significantly above the neutral response of 4 (M=5.20, SD=1.45, p<0.001) and the mean response for the conjoined twins scenario significantly below 4 (M=3.27, SD=2.09, P=0.030).

Study 4:

In Study 4, 60 subjects were given the following vignette:

As part of an experiment, a mad scientist attached two men who had lost their arms to the same donor hand! To do this, the scientist carefully connected each of the patients’ nerve fibers to the new appendage. The two of them now share the one hand. After the operation, the doctor tested their ability to use the new hand. He found that while the two patients have some difficulty picking things up with the shared hand, they show normal pain responses. In particular, when the doctor cut the palm of the shared hand, both patients grimaced and shouted out “Ouch!” Upon questioning, they told the doctor that it had hurt when he cut them.

Subjects where then asked whether the patients felt one and the same pain or two different pains, answering on the same scale used in Study 3.

Again, the mean response was significantly below four (M=3.42, SD=1.82; p=0.016), with the majority of subjects indicating that the two patients felt the same pain.

[Cross-posted at WIPLASH]