Taking consciousness for real: Increasing the ecological validity of the study of conscious vs. unconscious processes.
Neuron May 15, 2024 Liad Mudrik, Rony Hirschhorn, Uri Korisky 15 citations
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.