Perruchet and Vinter's SOV

¶ … driving force behind the Self-Organizing Consciousness Model is awareness (SOC; Perruchet & Vinter, 2002). Perruchet and Vinter (2002) basically address the dilemma of the need for two independent forms of cognition, one conscious and one unconscious by simply arguing that the notion of unconscious representations are not demonstrated empirically or are inconsistent with the empirical literature and that one can only discuss conscious representations as being "cognitive" processes. Thus, the driving force in the SOC model is that on some level all processes defined as being cognitive involve some level of awareness.

Of course the model would be invalidated if did not explain that there certainly are perceptions that do not reach awareness. In this model the stimuli that are perceived without direct awareness are processed in a bottom-up fashion and have a transient effect on the perceptual system (sensory processing), whereas self -- organizing requires conscious stimuli to be processed by top-down connections including working memory and long-term memory storage. Thus, consciousness is a self organizing top-down process that incorporates sensory stimulation in order to generate awareness and meaning.

Perruchet and Vinter's (2002) model attempts to solve the dilemma of conscious awareness and behavior by maintaining that the phenomena of an unconscious cognitive process or event implicit cognition cannot be explained by classic theories of information processing (see Cleeremans, 2014). Unfortunately for Perruchet and Vinter recent understandings of the brain and consciousness indicate that there are implicit forms of mental processes that do qualify as cognition (Evans & Stanovich, 2013).

Consciousness can exist on two levels such that there is a fast intuitive cognitive process that is used in learning and decision-making and a slow and reflective process that allows for more deliberate decision-making, responses, consideration, etc. The dual -- process theories of cognition are able to better account for how an understanding of cognition on both the level of awareness and unawareness (conscious and unconscious cognitive processes) relates to a broader understanding of consciousness.

Thus, dual process models incorporate many of the ideas of Perruchet and Vinter (2002) such that awareness and controlled cognitive processing are linked. The difference is that overall consciousness is also regulated by a fast intuitive cognitive process that is responsible for the vast majority of decisions, actions, etc. that individuals perform on a daily basis.

The validity of these dual processing models of cognition has been supported in empirical investigations of how controlled processes are burdened by loads on working memory and unable to function effectively when working memory capacity is taxed while automatic cognitive processes continue to function smoothly in spite of this overload (Johnson, Tubau, & De Neys, 2014) or by research investigating the origins and utility of the use of heuristics and cognitive biases in decision-making and learning (Croskerry, Singhal, & Mamede, 2013).

Thus, the empirical validation of an unconscious form of cognition is at odds with the notions of Perruchet and Vinter's (2002) SOC conceptualization regarding unconscious cognition. While SOC is a more parsimonious approach towards explaining consciousness it cannot account for these aforementioned empirical observations (and others as well). When the more parsimonious theory does not fully explain empirical observations it must be rejected in favor of an even less parsimonious approach that.