Structure in the stream of consciousness: Evidence from a verbalized thought protocol and automated text analytic methods.

In this study, we used a verbalized thought protocol to investigate "clump-and-jump" structure in SST-clusters of related thoughts about a topic followed by a jump to a new topic, in a repeating pattern. Several lines of evidence convergently supported the presence of clump-and-jump structure: high interrater agreement in identifying jumps, corroboration of rater-assigned jumps by automated text analytic methods, identification of clumps and jumps by a data-driven algorithm, and the inferred presence of clumps and jumps in unverbalized SST. We also found evidence that jumps involve a discontinuous shift in which a new clump is only modestly related to the previous one. These results illuminate serial structure in SST and invite research into the processes that generate the clump-and-jump pattern.
PMID: 32977240 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Consciousness and Cognition - September 21, 2020 Category: Neurology Authors: Sripada C, Taxali A Tags: Conscious Cogn Source Type: research