Taking consciousness for real: Increasing the ecological validity of the study of conscious vs. unconscious processes.

Summary

The field of consciousness research has developed rigorous experimental methods, but these often rely on artificial paradigms that differ from everyday conscious and unconscious processes, raising concerns about ecological validity. This review argues that adopting more naturalistic approaches, as other cognitive science fields have done, can challenge existing hypotheses, yield stronger effects, and enable new research questions. Three paths are identified: changing stimuli and experimental settings, changing measures, and changing research questions. The authors review studies that have begun implementing such approaches and, while acknowledging challenges, call for increasing ecological validity in consciousness studies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The study of consciousness has developed well-controlled, rigorous methods for manipulating and measuring consciousness. Yet, in the process, experimental paradigms grew farther away from everyday conscious and unconscious processes, which raises the concern of ecological validity. In this review, we suggest that the field can benefit from adopting a more ecological approach, akin to other fields of cognitive science. There, this approach challenged some existing hypotheses, yielded stronger effects, and enabled new research questions. We argue that such a move is critical for studying consciousness, where experimental paradigms tend to be artificial and small effect sizes are relatively prevalent. We identify three paths for doing so-changing the stimuli and experimental settings, changing the measures, and changing the research questions themselves-and review works that have already started implementing such approaches. While acknowledging the inherent challenges, we call for increasing ecological validity in consciousness studies.