PSIHOBIOLOGIA INCONȘTIENTULUI

ABSTRACT

The present study is a short review of relevant investigations which were looking for neurobiological data in order to increase the validity of psychological models of unconscious. Our attention was focused especially on subliminal perception phenomenon because our main research interest is in this area. Both psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology are interested to obtain neurobiological suport for their models of unconscious. Freud desired to root psychoanalysis in biology and to consider the mechanisms of the mind as being instantiated in brain processes. Although the essential character of psychobiology is correlative the general tendency is to look to psychobiology for confirmation rather than correlates, to find in psychobiology a more "objective" foundation than is provided by psychoanalytic or cognitive theory. The integration of psychobiological methods with those traditionally employed in studies of the unconscious required a somewhat diluted version of the unconscious itself; a version that is less beholden to established psychoanalytic notions and more in keeping with information-processing models of mental life. As the matters now stand in context of cognitive science approach, the psychobiology of unconscious is more promise than reality.

KEYWORDS: unconscious, psychobiology, subliminal perception