Closet Analysis

It is known that in ones day to day routine, the moment an individual opens their eyes, he or she is promptly aware of a medley of percepts and urges. Such percepts and urges are experienced involuntarily, effortlessly, and regardless of one's desires. These conscious content are subjectively portrayed to "just happen" and occur without one's intention. Relatedly, high-level cognitions beyond those of basic percepts and urges have also been found to enter consciousness in such an insuppressible manner. Consider the case of when entering one's closet; the vast majority of conscious contents composing the stream of consciousness are generated in response to external stimuli. For instance, one cannot suppress the perception of color to one's clothes,

Referring back to the closet example, one may forget their initial reason for entering the closet after hanging the article of clothing that had just fallen. As a result, some theorists would suggest that the content(s) in consciousness that originally motivated one to enter the closet has now vanished or diminished significantly. The process by which one actively foregrounds a representation of thought or a percept which was active just moments ago and has not yet become inactive is known as refreshing (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). Thus, while the RIT often involves participants responding to the immediate environment, I aim to observe the depth of influence that external stimuli have across time through the component process of refreshing. If much of what enters consciousness does so in a reflex-like manner, regardless of its level, do representations held in mind through the process of refreshing behave similarly down stream? If this notion were to be held true, experimentalists would expect little to no difference in the reflex-like entry of content into consciousness from one point in time to another. This phenomenon is worth delving into primarily because decision-making and directed thought frequently carries the connotation of being willful, intentional, and vastly different from what one might experience during the