We recognise consciousness in ourselves and in those around us. Consciousness is the essence of our existence, who and what we are, but we are willing and able to let go of it daily during sleep, which we welcome and associate with rest, recovery and well being, knowing that consciousness will return reliably, when we are ready. Yet we cannot define this thing or process which makes us "us". We do not understand how it is constructed from the activity in our brains, how it is deconstructed by sleep, drugs or disease, or how it can be reconstructed by waking or recovery. Our ignorance renders us reliant on inadequate means of measuring consciousness, dependent on movement for its detection. Propofol is an intravenous anaesthetic drug with the capacity to safely, rapidly and reliably produce sedation and anaesthesia, providing an ideal model of unconsciousness for study. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides a non-invasive means of measuring activity within the brain. EEG is a convenient broad measure of neuronal activity. This thesis exploits the advantages of each of these techniques, fMRI and EEG, first separately and then together, to link highly informative, spatially specific fMRI observations to convenient, reproducible electrophysiological surface measurements. A safe and reliable model of unconsciousness suitable for fMRI interrogation is first developed and explored. Changes in the spatial extent and interregional correlation of neuronal activity when subjects become unresponsive show that the functional connectivity of the striatum is specifically impaired as perception fails. Disruption of the brain’s internal temporal frame of reference impairs the synthesis of perceptions from their fragments. The second experimental chapter specifically examines the behaviour of sleep oscillations during ultraslow increases and decreases in the depth of sedation with propofol. Functional activity shows that the brain is intensely active despite loss of consciousness and reveals measurable transitions in neuronal activity. Combined simultaneous EEG/FMRI then shows that these transitions reflect stepwise changes in the processing of experience and a shift from externally modulated thalamocortical signaling to an internal dialogue.

In our present image-laden environment that only seems to keep growing, the nature of how we see and interpret this visual information becomes highly relevant for me in my art. Spectacle, nostalgia, notions of portraiture, theatricality and other visual reflections of our present culture industry, are all elements that I address in my work. It is with these ideas in mind that I construct visual fields where disparate forms and images coexist, forming new narratives aside from their individual isolated implications; incorporating art production methods that construct an evolving dichotomy that contains a sense of play, tension, and irony while evoking references to our current social experiences. Keywords: spectacle, nostalgia, portraiture, collective consciousness, culture industry

Au coeur de la présente thèse se trouve la quête inachevée d’une/de conscience(s) de libération au moyen d’une pensée radicale et critique. Le savoir épistémologique développé par bell hooks et Paulo Freire quant à la transformation de conscience en vue d’une libération a été le premier guide dans cette recherche. L’étude empirique exprime ce que signifie une trans/formation de conscience politique, pour les participant.e.s – plusieurs acteur.e.s politiques palestinien.ne.s et israélien.ne.s situé.e.s à l’intérieur des frontières géographiques de l’Etat d’Israël. À travers de longs entretiens sous la forme de conversations, cette recherche ambitionne de comprendre les voies biographiques qui conduisent les participant.e.s à opérer des performances contre-hégémoniques dans leur vie quotidienne. La conscience coloniale est en rapport avec des questions de savoir et de pouvoir et est liée, d’après les participant.e.s, à une position hégémonique de pouvoir, de violence et d’arrogance. Cette recherche montre que si le sionisme est défini par tou.te.s les participant.e.s comme un fondement de l’oppression et de la domination institutionnalisées, il ne détermine pas de la même manière le destin des participant.e.s juif.ve.s israélien.ne.s ashkénazes, juif.ve.s israélien.ne.s mizrahi.e.s et palestinien.ne.s. L’engagement dans les processus de trans/formation est perçu comme l’accès à un site inconnu de transgression où l’on acquiert du savoir et des outils tout au long du voyage. La vue apparaît comme un sens crucial à travers lequel les participant.e.s racontent la perpétuation de la conscience coloniale ainsi que la possibilité de développer un regard contre-hégémonique libérateur. Les récits de libération des participant.e.s impliquent une pensée critique suivie, qui examine constamment la réalité et dévoile la vérité sur le monde. De même, il semble que tou.te.s les participant.e.s, tout en se trouvant à différentes étapes de leur processus de libération, comprennent la trans/formation de leur conscience politique, et ainsi leur quête de libération des structures coloniales de la pensée, comme une quête de savoir objectif authentiquement féministe. Les récits montrent que le fait d’abandonner des positions binaires permet une compréhension complexe de la réalité et du propre point de vue du sujet dans cette réalité, et est essentiel pour le(s) processus de libération. Les deux premiers chapitres, qui composent la première section intitulée « Le Regard », décrivent ce que signifie la conscience coloniale pour les participant.e.s, puis tracent les contours du processus de libération et présentent la réalité asymétrique d’un point de vue national. Avec le développement d’une lecture complexe de la colonialité israélienne, la thèse poursuit une analyse à plusieurs facettes. C’est ce qui est présenté dans la deuxième section, intitulée « Acte(s) de libération : faire de la pensée critique », où sont présentés les actes et les tâches assumées dans la quête d’une libération continue. Au troisième chapitre, sous le titre « Rendre présent » et au quatrième,intitulée « Rencontres radicales », est présentée la manière dont le développement d’un regard oppositionnel implique une constante réflexivité quant à la propre position du sujet au sein des rapports de pouvoir. Comment la conscience coloniale peut-elle être défaite au sein de la structure israélienne de colonialité ? Comment peut-on se frayer un chemin vers des manières alternatives de vivre ensemble ? Ces questions et d’autres, tout aussi vitales, sont au fondement du présent travail. / At the center of this dissertation stands the unending quest for liberation consciousness(es) through radical and critical thought. The epistemological knowledge developed by bell hooksand Paulo Freire, on consciousness transformation towards liberation has been the primary guide in this research. The empirical study expresses what trans/formation of political consciousness means to these participants - several Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli political actors with in the geographical boundaries of the State of Israel. Through long conversational interviews, the research strives to understand the biographical paths which lead the participants to counter-hegemonic performances in their daily life. Colonial consciousness relates to questions both of knowledge and of power and is connected, according to the participants, to a hegemonic position of power, violence and arrogance. The research has shown that while Zionism is defined by all participants as a basisto oppression and to institutionalized domination, it does not determine the fate of the Ashkenazi Jewish-Israelis, the Mizrahi Jewish-Israelis and Palestinian participants in the same way. To engage in liberation trans/formation processes was perceived as an entranceinto an unknown site of transgression from which one acquires knowledge and tools throughout the journey. Vision appears to be a crucial sense through which the participants recount the perpetuation of colonial consciousness, as well as the possibility to develop acounter-hegemonic gaze, which liberates.The participants’ accounts of liberation entail ongoing critical thought that constantly examines reality and unveils the truth about the world. Likewise, it seems that all participants, while in different stages within their processes of liberation, understand the trans/formation of their political consciousness and thus their quest for liberation from colonial structures of thought as a quest for genuine feminist objective knowledge.The accounts have shown that stepping out of binary positions, enables a complex understanding of reality and of one’s own standpoint within it, and are crucial within liberation processes(es). The two first chapters, which comprise the first station called The Gaze, describe what colonial consciousness means to the participants and then outlines the process of liberation, and presents the asymmetric reality from a national standpoint. With the development of a complex reading of Israeli coloniality, the dissertation follows a more multifaceted analysis. It is presented in the second station, called, Act(s) of Liberation : “Doing Critical Thinking”, and presents the acts and tasks one takes in the quest for constant liberation. In Chapter Three, entitled ‘Presencing’ and Chapter Four, entitled, ‘Radical Encounters’ I present the way the development of an oppositional gaze entails constant self reflexivity on one’s own position within the relations of power. How can colonialconsciousness be undone within the Israeli structure of coloniality ? How can people work their way towards alternative ways of living together ? These questions and some other vital ones, are at the basis of this work.

“What does it mean to be a person in the world?” has been a question that initiated this study with young people in an alternative-to-detention afterschool program. I used a participatory ethnographic approach to explore how a group of young people identify themselves by negotiating the labels placed on them. This study engaged with the philosophical reflections of Du Bois’s double consciousness and Greene’s continuous being to offer a conceptual framework of multi-consciousness. This multi-consciousness framework offered a way to examine young people’s geographical, ideological, linguistic, social, economical, and other representational boundaries. Similar to the intrinsically intertwined banyan tree, young people's lives intertwined through their demographic identities, their involvement in the digital and physical spaces, and their status in the justice system. The data for the study were collected through a participatory ethnographic approach using traditional ethnographic methods, such as conducting interviews, making participant observant, and co-producing artifacts with young people. These artifacts provided insight into the intricate relationships of how young people practice everyday citizenship in their daily lives. This study called for the embodiment of humane citizenship that included young people—particularly those in the juvenile justice system—to engage not as ornamental collaborators, but rather as genuine contributors who shape how we freely include and participate across the multiple networks in which we live and exist.

Chapter 1 starts with providing the theoretical background against which the experimental work in this thesis can be viewed. It provides the main approaches, theories and views on consciousness and the main challenges in the field. Specifically, it does so in relation to first-order and second- order neuronal processing, which will be explained later on. Furthermore, Chapter 1 discusses the conscious brain in its larger context of an embodied mind and the environment in which the agent lives. Lastly, the final section reviews the possibility of consciousness being a social construct. Chapter 2 continues with examining what happens when information-processing is limited to first-order processing, which is the case when information remains subliminal. Subliminal information does get processed up to a certain level, since brain activity in response to the stimulus can be measured. Yet, it is not processed up to the level that renders the stimulus conscious. The study presented in Chapter 2 aims to answer whether perceptual information presented below the conscious threshold can still affect behaviour? The outcome of this and similar studies would tell us more about the possible functions of consciousness. If subliminal stimuli are not able to influence behaviour, it would suggest that consciousness is necessary in order to guide or regulate human behaviour. Chapter 3 discusses how (changes in) perceptual content influences the subjective experience of time, a concept that is highly related to consciousness. Consciousness inevitably needs a reference or content to be conscious of. Similarly, time needs external physical events to occur to have any meaning, since time is generally only defined in terms of changes of state, mass or energy. Atomic clocks measure time by detecting changes in energy levels of electrons in atoms and are the most accurate timekeepers we have with an error rate of only 1 second per 30 million years. Therefore, no matter how small the event is, without any such event like a change in physical state of the electron the concept of time would be meaningless. Thus, the concept of time would be completely irrelevant in a universe without mass or matter. In such a universe the passing of a single nanosecond would be exactly the same as a billion years. This dependence on external events is what makes time perception such an interesting topic to study in the field of consciousness. The critical question here is how subjective experience of time relates to conscious (changes in) perceptual content.Chapter 4 further explores the relationship between perceptual content and consciousness. The study described in this chapter examines the transition of first-order information to second-order processing. Does a gradual increase in first-order perceptual evidence result in similarly gradual judgments of subjective experience? This chapter discusses levels of representation, perceptual evidence and their effect on subjective judgments. The key question here is whether increasing perceptual evidence while maintaining a fixed level of representation will result in higher levels of subjective measures as well or whether such measures only increase with higher levels of representation. In short, can you be more or less conscious in a graded manner or is consciousness an all-or-none type of phenomenon? This answer will have important consequences for distinguishing between the main theories on consciousness since their predictions about graded consciousness differ and therefore could be strongly challenged by the answer to this question. Chapter 5 tests the idea of consciousness being an acquired ability rather than an innate property of the brain by examining the possibility of training or improving second-order processing, which is one of the key assumptions of the Radical Plasticity Theory. The study described in this chapter explores plasticity of consciousness by performing a perceptual learning study of multiple sessions over several days. The effects of this training paradigm on both first- and second order processing will be discussed in this chapter. Chapter 6 looks deeper into such second-order subjective judgments and what kinds of first- order information is used to make such judgments. It has been suggested that such measures of conscious experience not only incorporate sensory information but also includes information from non-sensory brain areas such as the motor cortex. In light of the sensorimotor accounts of consciousness the influence of motor cortex, and thus action, on the subjective experience of visual stimuli would be an important result and would support such accounts wherein perception and action are tightly intertwined. Finally, chapter 7 summarizes the main findings and discusses the results within the larger framework or first- and second order processing. It also addresses the consequences or implications of these findings for some of the most promising theories on consciousness, and Radical Plasticity thesis in particular. / Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

I defend the view that mental states have degrees of strength. Our pains are more or less intense, our mental imagery is more or less vivid, our visual perceptions are more or less striking, and our desires and thoughts are more or less gripping. Mental strength is a phenomenal magnitude shared by all conscious experiences that determines their degree of felt intensity. Mental strength, however, has been largely ignored over other aspects of mental states such as their representational contents, phenomenology, or type. Considering mental strength is crucial for illuminating philosophical discussions related to representationalism, the transparency of experiences, cognitive phenomenology, attention, and the structure and function of consciousness. I use mental strength to develop in detail a neuropsychologically plausible theory of introspection and its limits that is inspired by a signal detection theoretic model of perception. In the second half of the dissertation, I look into methodological issues concerning the neural correlates of consciousness such as controlling for performance capacity and stimulus strength, and what these methodological concerns reveal about our theories of consciousness and its function.

An ontological exploration of consciousness and how it is related to the body and other aspects of physical reality. Framed by David Chalmers' conception of "The Hard Problem", we begin from a physicalist perspective to discuss the problem of mental causation, which is the inquiry of how the mind communicates and interacts with the body. From here we examine the employment of identity reduction to functionalize and therefore physically explain mentality. We find that reductionist methods, the backbone of scientific investigation, do not work to explain conscious experience, because conscious experience is not quantifiable--it is qualitative. Thus we are left with looking for alternatives to our physicalist world-view in order to explain consciousness's place in reality. Perhaps a major conceptual revolution of how we see and understand the world is on the horizon that will allow us to finally explain consciousness.

Psychological and physiological effects of nitrous oxide resemble those of eight other drug categories. Lipid solubility or hydrate microcrystal theories correlate behavioral measures with measurable parameters of the molecule N20. N20, a spindle poison, halts mitosis in metaphase, producing widespread physiological consequences. N20 affects the microtubules of the spindle in a number of specific ways. Microtubules are utilized in other parts of eukaryotic cells, in a wide variety of functions. In neurons, microtubules build and maintain dendritic sensory processes. Since microtubules are built of two dissimilar proteins, constantly assemble and disassemble, and maintain a more negative interior potential, they would be responsive to changes in summed post-synaptic dendritic potential. Microtubules respond to N20 with a loss of communication between subcellular components, and between cells. Chromosomes, proteins, and ATP are no longer transported efficiently. Such fundamental changes might explain nitrous oxide's effects in "potentiating" other drugs, and upon perception and memory.

Over the past several years, there has been an influx in patients being treated for polytraumatic injuries within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), largely due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also due to advances in life sustaining medical interventions. The polytrauma population includes veterans who have sustained a severe traumatic or non-traumatic brain injury, and a significant loss in cognitive and physical functioning, referred to as a disorder of consciousness. The purpose of the current study was to explore factors related to successful emergence from a disorder of consciousness, using a sample of veterans who were treated at one of the five VA polytrauma rehabilitation center (PRC) sites in an Emerging Consciousness (EC) Program. Participants (N = 70) included both combat and non-combat active duty military personnel and veterans who sustained either a severe traumatic brain injury or anoxic brain injury, and were considered to have a disorder of consciousness at the time of their admission to the EC program. Patient information was retrospectively collected from electronic medical records, and included demographic data, medical information, and scores on the Functional Independence Measure (FIM), Rappaport Coma Near Coma (CNC) Scale, and the JFK Coma Recovery Scale- Revised (CRS-R). In addition, Receiver Operator Characteristic Models (ROC) were utilized to explore “cut scores” for predicting emergence using the CNC and CRS-R. Results showed that age is a significant factor in changes in FIM scores over time, but it did not predict time to emerge or emergence itself. In addition, for the CNC, scores at intake tended to be a better predictor of emergence, while week three scores on the CRS-R were more accurate in determining whether someone would emerge or not. Exploratory analyses also showed a difference in discharge location after treatment based on a patient’s age. Finally, significant variance in initial scores on the CNC was seen for Caucasians, when compared to other ethnic groups. Limitations are explored, along with implications and recommendations for future research and clinical practice.

This is a qualitative research study that investigated the understanding of the concept of “critical consciousness” by female teachers teaching Arabic in Saudi Arabia’s high schools, the opportunity they have to develop critical consciousness, and how and why they develop it. The researcher engaged in semi-structured interviews with 25 female teachers who have at least nine years teaching experiences. The findings revealed that these teachers: (a) have a collective sense of the importance of critical consciousness skills to better themselves and Saudi Arabian society; (b) they are interested in and motivated to develop their critical thinking skills; (c) they develop critical consciousness in informal ways; and (d) the teaching practice in Saudi Arabia mostly relies on “banking education.” This is an unprecedented study in the field of students’ critical consciousness development in Saudi Arabia. The results have a number of important implications for future work and research in Saudi Arabia, as well as in neighboring countries that share similar complications related to the role and status of women in society.