Resampling (Narrative) Stream of Consciousness: Mind Wandering, Inner Speech, and Reading as Reversed Introspection

Modernist literary techniques, particularly those used by James Joyce, can both inform and be informed by contemporary cognitive science. The essay proposes that cognitive models of mind wandering and inner speech—specifically perceptual decoupling and peripheral awareness—help explain the phenomenological experience of consciousness depicted in modernist literature. Conversely, modernist introspective explorations can challenge and refine these cognitive models. The authors also present a model of reading as a form of reversed introspection, where the reader retraces the author's inward journey.

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Abstract

Abstract:This essay promotes the idea that current cognitive models of mind wandering and inner speech can help us better understanding the phenomenological constituents of what Joyce calls “the mystery of the conscious” as simulated by modernist literary investigations. In our essay, we rework a model of perceptual decoupling (how attention disengages from perception) and peripheral awareness (the interplay of focus and periphery in perception). At the same time, we argue that modernist introspective explorations can challenge, correct, and update cognitive models. We also reflect on reading as a process reversing authorial introspective quests (presenting a model of reading as reversed introspection).