The Compatibility Between Sociological and Cognitive Neuroscientific Ideas on Consciousness: Is a...

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The Compatibility Between Sociologicaland Cognitive Neuroscientific Ideas on Consciousness:Is a Neurosociology of Consciousness Possible?

Yulia S. Shkurko

Published online: 12 December 2012# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012

Abstract This article considers the possibility of integrating sociological and cognitiveneuroscience ideas on consciousness and developing a new research area: neurosociol-ogy of consciousnesses. Research was conducted taking into account the limitedknowledge on consciousness produced in these disciplines and the necessity of findingways to study the social roles concerning the neural correlates of consciousness.Applying several ideas on consciousness from these disciplines (intersubjectivity, closeconnection with collective forms representations, deriving awareness from the brain’sprocesses, and so on), I show that it is difficult to reconcile the differences in thetreatment of consciousness through the simple combination of the different ideas. Theintegration should be pursued in light of the neuroscientific findings concerning con-sciousness in different social contexts (role behavior, social interactions, and so on). Inintegrating the concepts, I predicted the role of time delay in conscious awareness indecision making, synchronization of neural oscillations under conscious perception, andthe activations of certain brain zones in correspondence to different conscious cognitiveprocesses for understanding in face-to-face situations. The study reveals that the optimalpath for neurosociological research on consciousness is in its primary developmentwithout a rigid binding to either sociology or neuroscience.

Keywords Consciousness . Neural correlates of consciousness . Intersubjectivity .

Sociology . Cognitive neuroscience . Social neuroscience . Neurosociology .

Neurosociology of consciousnesses

Introduction

When I started researching the issue of consciousness, I experienced contradictoryfeelings. As a sociologist, I felt dissatisfaction since sociology did not provide me

Integr Psych Behav (2013) 47:123–141DOI 10.1007/s12124-012-9224-9

Y. S. Shkurko (*)University of Russian Academy of Education Nizhny Novgorod Branch, Sergievskaya St., 10/42,Nizhny Novgorod, Russiae-mail: [email protected]

with the proper tools to serve my research interests with regard to the idea ofconsciousness, particularly as concerns analysis of the connection between micro(behavior, action, decision making, etc.) and macro social processes (social change,the formation and functioning of social institutions, collective choices, etc.). Thisfeeling was further aggravated when I encountered findings from other scientificareas (especially cognitive neuroscience) which appeared more interesting and infor-mative than those generated by the field of sociology. These results were generatedthrough experimental observation of the functioning of consciousness in specificpeople, which is not a widespread research practice in sociology. At the same time, Iobserved that the findings of neuroscientific studies typically concerned ideal (arti-ficially created) situations, which were separated from ecological forms of socialbehavior. Thus, it is difficult to ascertain how some neural activity can factor into reallife on the basis of similar experiments. The fact that the neuroscientific resultsconcerning consciousness are not clearly applicable to social behavior challengesme. Several questions emerge: how would it be possible to stretch a thread fromneural activity through consciousness to social activity? How can nonsociologicalideas be placed into the traditional sociological framework? My attempts to usenonsociological conceptions of consciousness in sociology have generally led direct-ly to eclectic, speculative conclusions. I consider some of these combined ideas, aswell as sociological concerns about consciousness, in the first part of the article.

The difficulties of a combined strategy probably stem from the absence of con-sensus regarding the conception of consciousness across the social and naturalsciences. An overview of consciousness studies (Zeman 2001, for a review) revealsthat the main problem in this area is the variety of treatments of the concept ofconsciousness; further, some research on the phenomenon of consciousness is with-out any sort of accurate definition of the concept (see relevant criticism on Barutta etal. (2010) in: Allakhverdov and Gershkovich 2010). The latter problem is especiallywidespread in the sociological domain, in which consciousness is often applied as aself-evident conception or in a metaphoric manner. Similar modes of treatment ofconsciousness and related notions on mind led to doubts concerning the expediencyof the meta-theoretical use of “mental” terminology in sociology (e.g., Turner 2007,for criticisms on the contemporary state of sociological studies on mental (cognitive)processes). This has also led to debate on the role of mental phenomena in theunderstanding of social behavior and anti-cognitivist arguments (Watson andCoulter 2008, for a comment on the diversity of recent anti-cognitivist approaches).

In cognitive neuroscience, consciousness is treated with more concrete terminol-ogy; at least, it is ordinarily easy to reconstruct what scholars understand aboutconsciousness, as their results draw from concrete experimental cases. For example,when scholars study vegetative state or coma (e.g., Giacino et al. 2002) according tothe emotional responses of people to external stimuli, we can conclude that emotionalreaction is a key feature of conscious perception and states of consciousness; further,consciousness is treated as the process of awareness of self and environment.Contemporary neuroscientific studies on consciousness are characterized by thepredominantly experimental character of the research. The obtained results are basedon the analysis of different cognitive processes (perception, decision making, thinking,etc.), and scholars attempt to gain access to human consciousness through their analysis.In such studies, consciousness is—as a rule but not always explicitly—treated as the

124 Integr Psych Behav (2013) 47:123–141

reflection of inner, subjective, qualitative experience or awareness on the outward(conscious perception, awareness of stimuli, etc.) and inward (reflection, consciousthought, self-awareness, etc.) aspects of a person. In the second part of the article, Iconsider the main directions concerning neural correlates of consciousness [NCC], andapply several findings related to these to hypotheses on social interactions and under-standing in face-to-face situations.

In determining the possibilities for integration between the sociological andneuroscientific approaches to consciousness, I adopt an integrated position.Therefore, I do not support the extreme path of proposing a fundamental incompat-ibility between the disciplinary traditions, such as the perspective of Charles andDege (2008), which was proposed in relation to cognitive and phenomenologicalpsychology. They said that “cognitivists and phenomenologists are simply interestedin accounting for different phenomena” (Charles and Dege 2008, p.198). Even if(which I doubt) researchers consider computational processes in the brain andsubjective experiences of reality to be principally different from each other, we mustask about the real-life connection between them. The separation position of Charlesand Dege is very simple; it allows researchers to avoid the issue of integration ofdiverse knowledge and divided disciplines. In fact, they propose that every researchermust remain within his/her own discipline and not ever think about overrunningdisciplinary boundaries. Such strategies lead to deadlocks and inhibit the develop-ment of the social and natural sciences. It seems that even Charles and Dege (2008)themselves understand that separation of disciplines is not a good perspective. In thefinal passage of the article, they noted that “instead of fighting the multiplicity bystruggling about the right approach, we might [do] better by encouraging a diversityof new descriptive systems that help enrich our perspective” (p.199). However, inorder to realize this perspective, mutual support between different disciplines needs tobe applied; previous authors have not provided such an opportunity. Thus, I agreewith researchers who realize interdisciplinary, integrative efforts, particularly theanthropologist Ingold (2000), who aims to overcome the dichotomies between natureand human (considered simultaneously as organism and person). Ingold foundresources to overcome this dichotomy in worldviews founded on the idea of indivis-ibility between organism and environment; this idea was characterized by “primitive”peoples in hunting and gathering societies. He considered unity between human andnature through the skills “incorporated into the modus operandi of the developinghuman organism through training and experience in the performance of particulartasks” (Ingold 2000, p.5). Although I do not consider the connections between thedifferent levels of functioning in Ingold’s manner, his integrative intention forsynergy between natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences is on the wholenear to me. More salient is Turner’s argument that “any plausible mental concepts insocial theory need to be realizable in terms of the real features of real brains” (Turner2007, p.359). I do not disagree with such intention. However, it is not obvious that“full engagement with the problems of cognition themselves with the specific con-cerns of social theory in mind” (Turner 2007, p.359) is an optimal research strategyfor sociology. First, “mental” or “cognitive” processes (about which Turner wrote) arenot traditional themes in sociology, and they never have been. The examples cited byTurner, including Weber’s “subjective meaning” and Durkheim’s “collective con-sciousness,” do not seem relevant to “mentalistic or cognitive concepts” (Turner

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2007, p.357). Neither Weber nor Durkheim based his theories on such concepts. Itseems that Turner, although he mentioned Durkheim and Weber, was inclined to thepoint of view that sociology did not support the “mentalistic” trend, either historicallyor presently (see: Turner 2007, pp.362–363). Second, Turner called for a seriousrebuilding of sociology on the basis of the application of findings from the cognitivesciences regarding traditional sociological issues; he saw this as the only plausiblesalvage strategy for sociology. Retreat from cognitive issues, according to Turner,pushes “social theory to the far periphery of knowledge” (Turner 2007, p.359).However, the rewards of this research strategy for the field of sociology are notobvious. From this perspective, sociology is behind neuroscience in its development,is strongly dependent on neuroscience, and has lost its knowledge autonomy.Besides, it is not clear how this strategy can be realized. In neuroscience, there havebeen warnings concerning the fact that other disciplines address neuroscience as asource for complete knowledge (e.g., Damasio 1998). As Damasio (1998) notedconcerning similar attempts in other fields, this strategy is always accompanied bythe danger of superficial utilization of neuroscientific ideas. Besides, neuroscienceproduces limited knowledge concerning consciousness, and excessive reliance on itcan lead to distortion of neuroscientific ideas and result in further mystification ofconsciousness. Although neuroscientific strategies are not useless for sociology, asdemonstrated, for example, by Franks (2010), it is not obvious that the search forcorrelates between neuronal activity in the brain and social activity is obligatory forfuture pursuits in sociology, and it is not evident that this is an appropriate researchsubject in sociology. If such a strategy is realized, sociology might not remainsociology and could transform into some other discipline. That is, the resort strategyconsidered by Turner as favorable for sociology can actually lead to a submersion ofone’s own sociological perspective in the body of knowledge. In light of these argu-ments, the overcoming of disciplinary frameworks is a more favorable perspective thanthe correction of sociological views on consciousness according to neuroscientificfindings or a drive to somehow mutually attach sociological to neuroscientific ideas.We need to search for points of development in research on consciousness at the junctionof neuroscience and sociology that do not have strong bindings to one or the otherdiscipline. In the final part of the present paper, I propose hypotheses on some of theseperspectives, especially those concerning the social roles of neural processes thatunderlie conscious perception and awareness in social interactions.

Sociology and Cognitive Neuroscience: Is it Possible to Step Towards EachOther?

Considering sociological ideas concerning consciousness, there is a feeling of “emp-tiness” in the applied concept of consciousness, as it does not represent “ontologicalreality.” This emptiness stems from the fact that sociologists do not base theirresearch on conceptions of cognitive processes or account for the underlying neuralprocesses in the brain. It is not surprising that Emile Durkheim, one of the greatestclassic sociologists, felt that it was inconvenient and dissatisfying to apply the term“collective consciousness” (conscience) in sociology and distanced himself fromconsideration of the individual mind. Thus, as Némedi (2000) demonstrated,


Durkheim retreated from “collective conscience” in his later works of the 1890 s,instead using the term “collective representations.” Such replacement indicates thatDurkheim had already seen the difficulties in applying the concept of consciousnessto the analysis of collective “mental” processes in sociology—to which socialscientists did not pay attention. Consciousness refers to the individual mind andbrain, and sociological approaches are poorly adopted to account for it in suchmanner. In sociology, consciousness seems to be “flying” in a social space, and weonly guess its relationship with processes in the brain. As a consequence, thestrategy of integration between sociological and neurosociological perspectives byconnection through the world of “consciousness” usually leads to eclectic con-clusions. This strategy is not based on a common understanding of consciousness,and it leads to conclusions not supported by both neuroscientists and sociologists.Nevertheless, as I demonstrate below this strategy is not useless at all; if we cantraverse the boundaries between disciplines, then potentially interesting researchpaths can appear.

In sociology, ideas concerning individual consciousness are usually supplementaryin nature and are not based on studies of consciousness itself, at least in a mannercomparable with neuroscience. To demonstrate the features of sociologicalapproaches to consciousness, as well as points for potential integration with thediscipline of neuroscience and difficulties in this process, I summarize (withoutclaiming to provide a complete overview) the social contexts in which the term“consciousness” appears in sociology. These contexts include (i) social interactionsand communication, (ii) collective forms of social representations, and (iii) socialprocesses enabling self-reproduction of the social system.

Social Interactions and Communication In this context, consciousness is applied as aconcept that includes mental (connected with internal world and inter-subjectivity)structures and processes that direct the focus of attention and enable individuals tointeract and communicate. Consciousness is considered thusly particularly in sym-bolic interactionism, constructivism, and phenomenological sociology (e.g., A.Schutz, P.L. Berger, T. Luckmann, and E. Goffman). Background expectations,frames, self-consciousness projects, memories, processes of meaning establishment,and other processes are considered here as connected with the functioning of con-sciousness. The main emphasis is on intersubjectivity (in the terminology of AlfredSchutz (1932/1967)); in other words, the emphasis is on the part or characteristic ofindividual consciousness that is socially determined and shared with others. Thisproperty of consciousness is connected with intentionality and the ability of con-sciousness to “choose” social reality:

Different objects present themselves to consciousness as constituents of differ-ent spheres of reality. I recognize the fellowmen I must deal with in the courseof everyday life as pertaining to a reality quite different from the disembodiedfigures that appear in my dreams. The two sets of objects introduce quitedifferent tensions into my consciousness and I am attentive to them in quitedifferent ways. My consciousness, then, is capable of moving through differentspheres of reality. Put differently, I am conscious of the world as consisting ofmultiple realities (Berger and Luckmann 1989, p.21).


Consciousness allows us to distinguish “realities” (in Berger and Luckmann’scitation, the reality of dreaming and everyday life) and, according to a “chosen”reality, consciousness sets a framework for the attention and activity of the individual.Thus, consciousness is an intentional process that directs the attention of the indi-vidual, frames social perception and social activity, and (because of the intersubjec-tive elements of consciousness) enables understanding between people.

The intersubjectivity of consciousness, considered on the level of brain processes,is also of current interest in social neuroscience. For instance, Gallese and coauthors(2004) considered the activation of the mirror neuron system in the brain as afundamental mechanism for understanding others. Thus, they proposed that “whenwe see someone performing an action… there is… concurrent activation of part of thesame motor circuits that are recruited when we ourselves perform that action”(Gallese et al. 2004, p.397). An explanation of how the intersubjectivity of con-sciousness connects people with each other is also provided by Graziano and Kastner(2011). They proposed that consciousness is “specialized neuronal machinery thatallows us to be socially intelligent” (Graziano and Kastner 2011, p.98). Identicalneuronal processing of information in the brain underlies self-awareness and aware-ness of others and satisfies preconditions for mutual awareness between people; thus,it probably serves as a basis for further understanding. The search for the neuronalroots of consciousness in the social space—social perception, social interaction,etc.—matches the intentions of some present social scientists. Flores-González(2008) suggested that human entrance into the world is realized through others andconsidered the principal role of the intersubjectivity of consciousness. FollowingMeurleau-Pontu, he said that “consciousness is [a] delocalized phenomenon” (p.191);it is not self-centered but is immersed in relations with others and the world. It is acondition rather than a property of human beings (this idea is also supported byIngold (2000)). The intersubjectivity of consciousness is one of the most promisingpaths for the initial development of neurosociological hypotheses of consciousness; Ifurther discuss such intersubjectivity below.

Collective Forms of Social Representation Individual consciousness (namely, differ-ent forms of higher-order awareness) is considered as derived from different forms of“collective consciousness.” The following is a characteristic proposition:

… individual consciousness results from the development of collective naming,classifying, judging, reflection, and discourse applied to individual members orparticipants in the collective. Each individual member acquires the capacity toengage in self-reflectivity through [his/] her acquisition of not only languagecompetence and collective representations but of capabilities of discussingconceptions, observations, and assessments of [him/] herself, among otherobjects defined and discussed within the collectivity. (Burns and Engdahl1998b, pp.166–167)

The tradition of considering individual consciousness through collective forms ofrepresentation is rooted in Mead’s theory of Mind, Self, and Society (Mead 1934). Inthis theory, consciousness (treated as mind, self-awareness, self-reflection, or self-representation, etc.) is considered as a secondary process in the relation to collectiveconsciousness. The main idea is the priority of the social in all conscious processes,


as Ellsworth Faris argued: “not mind and then society; society first, and then mindsarising with that society… would probably have been [Mead’s] preference” (cited in:Ritzer 1992, p.192). Accordingly, in Mead’s theory, consciousness is considered firstand foremost as a social phenomenon that is not found on the individual level. Thisperspective of consciousness has become a foundation for some recent speculationson individual consciousness (e.g., Burns and Engdahl 1998a, b) and is accepted bythe majority of modern sociologists as a specifically sociological position in relationto consciousness.

Thus, population surveys and research on religion, classes, ethnic groups, etc. arebased on the explicit or implicit recognition that individual consciousness a) isgenerated in the course of interaction with members of the social groups to whichan individual belongs, and b) represents the collective consciousness of these groupsand/or society as a whole. In such studies, consciousness functions as a collection ofrepresentations of the different aspects of social life in the minds of people: itdetermines their social activity, in accordance with Mead’s tradition. This analyticalframework indicates that consciousness can be understood as everything related tothe internal world of an individual (e.g., an individual’s ideas, stereotypes, knowl-edge, expectations, preferences, intentions, etc.) and that consciousness is directconnected with individual’s behavior. In this “paradigm” we find researches on theinfluence of media on individual consciousness as a part of mass/public conscious-ness, which can be modified and controlled by external factors (e.g., the researches onmanipulation of mass consciousness, Kara-Murza 2001, amongst). Nevertheless, theusing of concept of individual consciousness as a part of mass/public consciousness isdecorative and looks unnecessary; it is seemed that the researches apply this term in arandom way and do not aim to fill it by the meaning. For example, one of the parts ofthe overview on mass communication theories of McQuail (1983) titled “Socialcontrol and consciousness formation”; however, the applying of “consciousness”had not resulted in further consideration of this phenomenon.

The “representational” approach can be combined with cognitive neuroscience—and especially cognitive psychology—through consideration of individual conscious-ness in computational terminology. Thus, we can say that human consciousnessabsorbs, processes, and stores information and further applies it to social behavior.In this approach, consciousness is eliminated by the concept of “mind-as-computer”and can be replaced by terms related to cognition. This argument can be interpreted assupporting the relevance of epiphenomenalism and the irrelevance of consciousnessfor social behavior. However, I incline to the point of view that the possibility ofcognitivist reformulation is development of the definitional drawbacks in conscious-ness studies within sociology, as mentioned above. Thus, we can overcome elimina-tion through the comparison of conscious vs. unconscious computational processes inthe mind and the discussion of their respective social roles. In investigations of theinfluence of outward social factors on consciousness (if one does not concentrate onthe definitional problems), the acknowledgement of changes in consciousness inreaction to external stimuli is important. Such social plasticity of consciousness isthe crucial sociological feature of individual consciousness and is one of the principalideas underlying all sociological approaches. Following Laird (2007), I propose thatthree “levels of organization” are simultaneously real and interconnected: (i) neuralprocesses underlying consciousness (these are ordinarily considered as neural


correlates of consciousness), (ii) conscious cognitive processes (self-perception,awareness of the events, etc.), and (iii) social environment. NCC is probably rela-tively invariant between individuals, while consciousness state is variable; then,under the same NCC, different subjective experiences produce variety in socialenvironment (social behavior, social perception, etc.). Thus, the human brain prob-ably supports social variability through consciousness. At the same time, if the factthat consciousness is produced by the brain’s processes is taken into account, thenthere are correlations between the effects of social factors on consciousness andchanges in the underlying neural processes. That is, we can research how socialfactors influence brain processes.

Macro Social Processes Enabled Self-Reproduction of the Social System Luhmann,who was a prominent sociologist of the twentieth century (e.g., Luhmann 1995),suggested considering consciousness (in his terminology, individual systems ofconsciousness) as a filtering instrument for communication in society. According toLuhmann, individual systems of consciousness control access to communicationthroughout the social system and filter which communications will participate inthe social system’s process of self-reproduction. Such treatment results in Luhmann’stheory suggesting that consciousness is the main prerequisite for autopoiesis, that is,the self-generation of life. In light of this theory, “strong” statements on the consti-tutive role of consciousness in social processes amount to nothing. Thus, it is notclear what consciousness is and why the process of filtering communication isrealized consciously, as communication is probably filtered on numerous levels, bothconscious and unconscious. Parsons, another “grand theorist” in sociology, men-tioned consciousness in the context of socialization. Although Parsons (1964) doesnot conceive of individual consciousness as a central idea, his statements regardingthe meaning and essence of consciousness allow us to conclude that, in his under-standing, consciousness connects the actor with the social system. Consciousnessparticipates in the reproduction and integration of the social system, since—asParsons suggests—socialization (another key mechanism besides social control thatpreserves systemic equilibrium) supports individual consciousness and leads to theinternalization of societal norms and values.

On the other hand, brain lesion studies in cognitive neuroscience validate theproposition on the connection between normal social activity and normal functioningof consciousness. Researchers are particularly interested in the connections betweendamage to different areas of the brain and failure of consciousness-related functions(e.g., Frith 1992; Frith and Happe 1999). Brain damage can also result in atypicalindividual activity; in most research, the deviance of cognitive processes in mentaldisease states is examined. For example, Khoshbin has investigated damage to thetemporal lobe of the brain, which lead to epilepsy and in some cases disease; this mayresult in high levels of creativity and specific perception of the world, as in the case ofthe artist Vincent van Gogh (BBC 2000; Khoshbin 1986). Van Gogh suffered fromepilepsy, and this presumably resulted in the exotic bright color box of his picturesand his image of the world as consisting of separate colors and wavy lines. “I don’t thinkhe was a genius because of his epilepsy, but it affected his art,” Khoshbin said in one ofhis interviews. He also said that Van Gogh could have had an outburst of hypergraphia:“When you look at those paintings and realize that each one was done in a day, you


realize that it takes tremendous compulsion for someone to do that” (Haney 1985). Theseand similar neuroscientific ideas can be considered as an anti-epiphenomenalismtrend and support the idea of a social role of consciousness in human activity.

If the aforementioned neuroscientific idea is imposed onto Luhmann’s theoreticalframework, the following proposition can be generated: damage to conscious per-ception (for example, the absence of reflection in schizophrenia) leads to dysregula-tion of social processes and particularly to the impossibility of normal socialcommunication and disturbs reproduction of social patterns. Thus, the roots of socialprocesses can be found in the tendencies of human brain to enact and maintain certainsorts of neural activity. However, cognitive neuroscientists do not make such “global”conclusions concerning social processes; Luhmann theorized about consciousnesswithout clearly understanding the brain processes underlying it.

The analysis of this and similar interdisciplinary pathways indicate the necessity ofa research strategy consisting of more than simply a different combination of diverseand ill-matched ideas concerning consciousness. The combinational strategy is notonly unproductive as a research pathway but is also difficult from an epistemicperspective. Thus, there is an obvious gap between the sociological and neuroscien-tific understandings of consciousness. There is also a gap in understanding of how toresearch consciousness. Rather, meta-theoretical sociological ideas of consciousnesscontrast with experimental findings in cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive neurosci-ence research in concrete forms of conscious cognitive processes contrasts with theabstract and metaphoric ideas of social scientists. Turner (2007) considered this as afeature of social studies on cognitive processes as a whole; for example, he found this“illness” in Bourdie’s conception of disposition. This explains the invisibility ofsociological ideas of consciousness among researchers in other disciplines1. AsZeman noted in a review of basic approaches to consciousness, social scientists’focus on higher-order awareness without addressing the more basic problem ofperceptual awareness is one of the sources of the gap between studies of conscious-ness performed in the social sciences vs. other scientific disciplines (Zeman 2001).

Cognitive Neuroscience as a Starting Point for a Neurosociologyof Consciousness

The idea of a connection between the brain and consciousness allows us to build a“chain” by combining seemingly different levels: neural processes in the brain,

1 After of the Center for Consciousness Studies and the Association for Scientific Study of Consciousness(Center 2012) was organized, the annual international conference “Toward a Science of Consciousness”was started and selected conference proceedings have been published by the MIT Press (e.g., Hameroff etal. 1996; Hameroff et al. 1998). The analysis of their contents shows clearly the role of contemporarysociology of consciousness amongst other consciousness studies. Among conference publications you willsee representation of philosophy, cognitive science, medicine, and neurobiology, studies of the neuralcorrelates, molecular biology and evolution, quantum theory, experiential approaches but you will not seereports of sociological studies of consciousness. So, as Barbalet notes in the review by Zeman (2001) of“developments in the scientific study of consciousness, for instance, half a page only discusses “socialtheories”, and of the six items cited in that short space, none is written by a social scientist. No doubt, themajority of social scientists today share the image, presented here, of a lack of interest in consciousnessamongst them” (Barbalet 2004, p.245).


consciousness, and—most importantly for sociology—social behavior. The majorchallenge here is to pass between a rock and a hard place—biological and socialreductionism—and consider the biology, phenomenology, and sociology of con-sciousness on an equal basis. It is necessary to consider activity of the brain as asocial phenomenon, using the findings of cognitive neuroscience to look at problemsfrom a sociological perspective. Thus, the starting point for the development of aneurosociological approach to consciousness is the neuroscientific findingsconcerning concrete, conscious cognitive processes. The appeal to cognitive neuro-science as a basic source for the interdisciplinary pathway is justified by that field’sclearer understanding of consciousness and its more-developed methodology forconducting studies on different forms of consciousness than those of sociology.Besides, it is uncomfortable to address the issue of consciousness only on the basisof sociological findings. An intellectual inconvenience stems from the gap betweenthe conceptions of consciousness in sociology and cognitive neuroscience; thus,Turner states in relation to sociological research on cognitive processes as a whole,“the terms [by] which it has been conducted are no longer in accord with the rest ofthe rapidly developing body of knowledge about the mind and the brain, andpotentially in conflict with it” (Turner 2007, p.357–358). In sociological studies,research has under-applied the concept of consciousness simply to avoid carefulconsideration of this phenomenon; the “subjectivity” of conscious experiences isprobably seen as unrelated to the sociological subject of investigation. This was theintention of the sociologists of the classic period who aimed to divide sociology fromother sciences, particularly psychology, and this view has been implicitly maintaineduntil the present.

Cognitive neuroscience generally assumes that individual consciousness is aproduct of neural activity in the brain and that its functioning depends on thecondition of the individual’s brain—particularly which parts of the brain are activatedand how. The social environment of an individual (and his/her brain) is considered asan object of observation by consciousness and a source of its activation (e.g.,perception of objects in the external world and utilization of awareness mechanisms).The social activity of individuals is almost not considered in relation specific aspectsof the functioning of consciousness. We can only assume that loss of reflexivity—bywhich schizophrenia is sometimes accompanied (e.g., Frith 1992)—will lead tosocially deviant behavior of individual sufferers, meaning that neural activity hasaccess to the social environment. The absence of social applicability of the relationshipbetween the manifestations of consciousness in brain processes and social processes(e.g., social interactions, social roles, social institutes, etc.) reveals the domain of theintersection between sociology and cognitive neuroscience. This is a domain in whichneuronal processes in the brain that concern consciousness (i.e., those ordinarily definedas NCC) enter into the social space; research on this entrance is the initial task inneurosociological hypothesizing concerning consciousness. Sociology and cognitiveneuroscience, as separated disciplines, provide us only with fragments of knowledgeconcerning consciousness, such as the constitutive role of a shared focus of attention onsocial processes or the connection between consciousness and neural processes in thebrain. In the neurosociology of consciousness, it will be possible to connect these piecesof knowledge and trace the connection between different levels, from processes in thebrain through human consciousness to social activity and vice versa.


For further predictions, I primarily concentrate on neural processes in the brain thatcan be applied to conscious perception and conscious awareness of others in face-to-face interactions. Tononi and Koch (2008) identify two major directions withinresearch on NCC, defined by Koch as “the minimal neuronal mechanisms jointlysufficient for any one specific conscious percept” (cited in: Tononi and Koch 2008, p.239). One branch of this research (e.g., Edelman 2003; Gaillard et al. 2009) concen-trates on the identification of areas of neural activity in the brain underlying variousforms (e.g., awareness, conscious visual perception and decision making, etc.) ofconsciousness manifestation, with close attention to brain lesion studies. In fact, thisgroup of researchers concentrates on the analysis of different levels or states ofconsciousness (e.g., sleep, waking, meditation, vegetative state, mental diseases)and various contents of consciousness determined by particular experiences at oneof these levels, such as conscious perception of different sensory objects, thinkingunder negative or positive emotional stressors, etc. The other branch of this researchpredominantly concentrates on the study of “dynamic aspects of neural activity”(Tononi and Koch 2008, p.239), focusing its main effort on questions about thecriteria for consciousness, that is, the necessary and sufficient conditions for theoccurrence of consciousness. Synchronization of neural oscillations in the brain isconsidered as one of the mechanisms underlying the origin of consciousness (alongwith simultaneous connections between different parts of the brain, reentrant activity,and others). Crick and Koch (1990), Melloni et al. (2007), and others have developedthe idea that synchronization of central neuronal oscillation at specific frequencies isa criterion for conscious perception. They believe that consciousness is accompaniedby oscillations of neurons in the brain at specific frequencies; ordinarily, the frequen-cies studied for the consideration of consciousness range from 30 to 120 Hertz (Hz),that is, 30–120 cycles per second. This proposition is derived from observation ofelectrical activity in the brain—which accompanies all cognitive processes (visualconscious perception is considered in most research)—by electroencephalography.On the basis of findings regarding the synchronization of neural oscillations, Crickand Koch (1990), and Melloni et al. (2007) suggest that such synchronization atspecific frequencies is a sufficient condition for the realization of consciousnessperception. This idea is not supported by all researchers, some of whom (e.g., vanLeeuwen 2007a, b; La Rock 2007a, b) indicate that the criterion of synchronization isinsufficient for the identification of conscious perception. However, the very fact ofneural synchronization is challenged by almost no one. I loosely refer to the researchon the dynamic aspects of neural activity concerning consciousness as approaches inwhich scholars study the issues of interconnection within neural processes in thebrain; in particular, I refer to this domain the studies on the interconnection betweenunconscious and conscious cognitive processes under situations of decision makingwhich focused specially on the moment of occurrence of conscious awareness (e.g.,Soon et al. 2008).

I refer below to the specific neural processes of conscious decision making.Experimental research (e.g., Soon et al. 2008), beginning with pioneering experi-ments conducted in 1980s by the American brain scientist Benjamin Libet (Libet2002, for summary of major findings), has demonstrated that subjects become awareof their decisions after the decisions have been made in their brains. This is examinedthrough observation of the activation of particular regions of subjects’ brains that


predetermined their subsequent conscious decisions. In such experiments, volunteerscarry out simple motor-decision tasks (e.g., decide between pressing “left” or “right”buttons) to indicate their decisions. Researchers observe neural activity with brainscanning instruments during the entire process of decision making. In most experi-mental cases, subjects make decisions on the neural level in the brain before theybecome aware of their choices. Similar studies have also been conducted in the fieldof cognitive psychology. In this area, the issue of unconscious processes in the brainis considered in terms of everyday behaviors (e.g., Bargh and Chartrtrand 1996;Wegner and Wheatley 1999), intentional actions (e.g., Bongers et al. 2010; Jeannerod2009; Vollmer 2001), stereotype and prejudice (e.g., Bargh and Williams 2006; Smithand Semin 2007), emotionally intelligent behavior (e.g., Salovey and Mayer 1990;Fiori 2009; Lambie 2009; Roberts 2009), etc. Although there is no common positionon the interdependence between unconscious and conscious cognitive processes,most mentioned researchers have observed a large role of the former in individualactivity seen by the individual as conscious.

Nevertheless, many scholars have researched conscious control over the brain’sprocesses (e.g., Baumeister et al. 2011) and over further social behavior (e.g.,Baumeister et al. 2011) and the indirect (through awareness) influence of activated“unconscious mental phenomena” on behavior (e.g., Vollmer 2001). Thus,Baumeister et al. (2011) argued and demonstrated the great role of conscious thoughtin human behavior through the examples of other researches. For example, theyshowed that anticipation and awareness of images influences life achievements; thatis, positive expectations concerning a future state of affairs promote the successfuldevelopment of events. At the same time, this research is not based on analysis ofNCC. Therefore, it cannot be directly compared with that employing time delay todecision making. A comparison is possible if under purposeful thoughts the image ofone’s future self becomes fixed on the neural level before we become conscious of it.The process of thinking on future events in this case is the analogue of Libet’s ideathat the necessity of making decisions initiates unconscious cognitive processes in thebrain.

Neurosociological Predictions on the Social Roles of Conscious Perceptionand Conscious Awareness

Development of the neurosociological perspective is connected with immersion ofthe neural processes underlying consciousness into different social contexts; this isdone without a strong bridging with sociological ideas of consciousness but withstrong concern for sociological problems. This means that we must answer questionsregarding the social role and the social meaning of the brain’s consciousness-relatedfeatures in different social situations, for example, in face-to-face interactions, expe-riences of the anonymous contemporaries, different role positions, etc. For example,is it possible to find a correspondence between the synchronization of neuronaloscillations during (or before?) conscious perception and social patterns? What willbe the change in society—i.e., social interactions and social institutions—if we haveaccess to higher-order processes in the brain and there is no time delay during theprocess of awareness of the decision? What is the social function of such neural


processes in the brain? How is consciousness manifested in social processes? Ianswer similar questions in relation to the role of the neural processes underlyingconscious perception and conscious awareness in face-to-face interactions. My initialpoint of consideration is the following set of connected predictions:

Hypothesis 1 Unconscious decision making at the brain level concerning how toperceive others, with further conscious justification to support it, is the mechanism ofactivation of intersubjectivity (i.e., socially shared modes of understanding, thinking,interpretation, representation, experience, reaction, etc.) enables humans to interactone with another.

Hypothesis 2 The synchronization of neuronal oscillations at specific (and perhapsthe same) frequencies accompanies the process of mutual understanding in face-to-face interactions.

These propositions are supported by the aforementioned sociological ideas on theintersubjective nature of consciousness, which manifest in social processes and areconsidered as constitutive elements for them. In this role, consciousness can beconsidered as an evolutionary benefit for humans. It enables common human life towhich individuals gain access in the early stages of childhood by learning “high-orderawareness”. (cf. Jaynes 1976). The constitutivity of consciousness in social processesis explained in sociology by ideas on the formation of individual consciousnessthrough interactions with others, by the functioning of consciousness as a socialmind (Mead’s tradition), and by ideas on shared systems of representation of theenvironment targeted toward the focus of attention (e.g., symbolic interactionism andthe phenomenological approach). Hypothesis 1 stems from several cognitive neuro-scientific ideas. These ideas concern time delay in conscious decision making (e.g.,Soon et al. 2008), the importance of enactment and maintenance of mutual awareness(Graziano and Kastner 2011) in social perception, and the proposed crucial role ofmirror neurons in understanding others (Gallese et al. 2004). The idea that identicalneural processes underlie awareness of others and self-awareness—proposed in theresearch of Graziano and coauthors—is also in accordance with Hypothesis 2. Thus,if the same neural processes underlie conscious awareness and self-awareness, thenperhaps the identical synchronization of neural oscillations accompanies theseprocesses. This idea is supported by the probable correspondence between eachact of consciousness and certain brain activities (e.g., Edelman 2003) and thesynchronization of neuron oscillations as a criterion for conscious perception (e.g.,Crick and Koch 1990).

Let us imagine a situation of social interaction between spouses—Alik and Betty.Alik comes home and sees that Betty does not meet him as she usually does; instead,she continues to go about her business. For Alik, such behavior is classified asunfriendliness and signifies Betty’s inattention or dissatisfaction about something.According to Gallese et al. (2004), at the moment when Alik perceives Betty, themirror neurons are activated in his brain; these neurons are the same ones activatedwhen Alik himself demonstrates unfriendliness to Betty and behaves as Betty does.At the same time, Alik makes a decision on whether to interpret the perceivedsituation as friendliness or unfriendliness; this is analogous to a situation of outward


decision making in time delay experiments. The distinction is that in such experi-ments, the decision involves stimulated external stimuli (the command of the exper-imenter to make a decision), but in the case with Alik, such “command” streams fromthe situation itself. Thus, activation of the “unfriendliness” mirror neurons initiallytakes place unconsciously (i.e., Alik does not have access to the cognitive process inthe brain.) However, he must interpret the situation as friendliness or unfriendlinessfor himself; i.e., he interprets Betty’s behavior within a dualistic framework (he doesnot simultaneously consider the situation as negative and positive). When he becomesconcretely aware of Betty’s actions and interprets the situation as a reality offriendliness or unfriendliness, he can consciously interrupt any further negativereaction to Betty in case the unfriendliness interpretation. This is a demonstrationof two forms of conscious reentrance into the brain’s processes, which are known as“downward neuron causality”—implying the influence of consciousness on NCC(e.g., Barutta et al. 2010)—and “upward neuron causality”—which underlies theinitial understanding and further awareness of Betty’s action arising from uncon-scious mirror neurons. Finally, some mutual space for perception is created in theprocess of social interactions; particularly, individuals can perceive the same visualobjects or communicate about things that become the focus of their mutual verbalperception. Thus, Alik and Betty perceive each other, and mutual reactions (worlds,facial expressions, gestures, etc.) become their common objects of potential aware-ness and self-awareness. As the neural processes underlying conscious perception ofthe same objects are identical across healthy persons, the neural oscillations of Alikand Betty are synchronized at the same frequencies in the same brain’s areas duringcoincidence of conscious experiences.

Further, I propose that the mirror neuron mechanism has flexibility and a dynamiccharacter in the brain. Mirror neurons are continuously reactivated in response to thereactions of others, and there is an “exchange” of information between the mirrorneurons of the other (concerning the other’s interpretation of me) and my own mirrorneurons (which accompany my interpretation of the other). Relevant to this proposi-tion is the suggestion of Berger and Luckmann concerning the social level of theconsidered situation: “It follows that relations with others in… face-to-face situa-tion[s] are flexible. Put negatively, it is comparatively difficult to impose rigidpatterns upon face-to-face interaction. Whatever patterns are introduced will becontinuously modified through the exceedingly variegated and subtle interchangeof subjective meanings that goes on.” (Berger and Luckmann 1989, p. 30) From theneuroscientific studies, it follows that opportunities to interact with, perceive, andunderstand others are not self-evident properties of human life; certain activation ofthe brain is required for these processes. Thus, the unconscious activation of mirrorneurons, and their synchronization at similar frequencies, constitutes a probablemechanism for the coincidence of human’ views, adequate reactions to others, andso on.

Thus, primarily neural reactions to others are unconscious; further, consciousperception results in reactions in the brain, that is, awareness of self and other.First, we are probably unaware of the other (unconscious experience), and then weconsciously perceive him/her (cf. the idea on “global neuronal workspace model” ofDehaene & Changeux, for a review: Meyer 2012). Under this perception, the sameneural processes generate synchronized activity in the cortical areas of interacting


brains; this can be considered as a prerequisite for similarity in perception andfor understanding. Time delay in conscious awareness of decisions concerningperception of the other frees consciousness from routine operations andincreases the speed of social interactions, allowing individuals to almost alwaysact unconsciously on the basis of previously absorbed patterns. On the otherhand, time delay in conscious decision making is probably connected with theopportunity to interrupt unconscious processes (e.g., Libet 1999) and veil bio-logical impulses with social cover. This also supports the debated prediction of Jaynes(1976) on the bicameral mind, which particularly implies the parallels betweenconscious and unconscious processes in the brain, the priority of unconscious pro-cessing in social behavior, and the appearance of consciousness during the process ofsocial evolution for the development of control in the form of linguistic reflection.From a broad social perspective, time delay promotes normal functioning andmaintenance of social institutions. This trend could be observed because peopleunconsciously follow social patterns, only having awareness of their own reality;however, they usually have not deep conscious thoughts or reflections on why theyare such as they are.

One obstacle to the realization of integration intention involves the methods ofapplying neuroscientific findings to specific disciplines (e.g., Varma et al. 2008)mentioned by the majority of researchers. In relation to educational research inparticular, Varma et al. (2008) say that neuroscience methods do not “provide accessto important educational considerations such as… context” because of their “depen-dence on highly controlled environment[s]”; they also make the more pragmaticobservation that “neuroscience methods are too expensive” (Varma et al. 2008,p.141–142). However, the obstacles connected with those methods can be fullyovercome through “innovative designs” which allow researchers to study the effectsof different social contexts on neural processes in the brain. This perspective couldpotentially enrich and improve present neuroscientific studies, allowing one toapproximate real-life situations. Thus, according to the neurosociological perspectiveon consciousness, such experimental situations that approach real interactions be-tween people should be investigated. For example, it would be useful to investigatethe situation of understanding vs. misunderstanding between people who haveinteracted previously within different institutional frameworks, such as relatives vs.colleagues or unknown persons, or to investigate consciousness activity while con-ducting routine actions inherent in different social roles (this could reveal the possiblesocial differences in consciousness functioning). Under experimental conditions, theresearcher could instruct persons to react to images of the actions or verbal expres-sions proposed to lead to understanding or misunderstanding. Special emphasis couldbe placed on fixation through the use of scanning techniques (ERP, fMRI, EEG, etc.)to observe the differences in the brain’s activity between “interacting” individuals’unconscious vs. conscious percepts of each other. In similar experiments, we can alsoverify the synchronization of neural oscillations in the same brain areas of bothparticipants in the process of communication and its correspondence with mutualunderstanding.

Further neurosociological perspectives involve questions specific to sociologyabout the social value of different conscious cognitive phenomena in different socialinstitutions, organizations, and in role performances, etc. For example, as stated by


Damasio, there is a different “degree of acuteness of the experiences,” i.e., there aredifferences in “the amount of concentration, amount of focus that you have on aparticular object or event [of which you are being conscious]” (Damasio 2010). Then,social differentiation could be informative about the functioning of consciousness, thedifferences between the conscious cognitive processes involved in different socialactivities, social inequality in opportunities to apply conscious perception, consciousreflection, conscious thought, etc. For example, some professions seemingly recruitfewer conscious cognitive operations than others: compare the actions of an artistwith the more routine (and unconscious) activities of an assembly line worker.Different social institutions therefore “demand” diverse consciousness-related activ-ity and hence the activation of various neural networks in individuals’ brains; thealready-considered correlation between brain functioning and consciousness testifiesto such activation. Social variability in the functioning of consciousness is supportedby the research of Ingold (2000), which argued that the human mind is formulatedthrough interactions with the environment (considered mainly as nature); accordingly,the different human skills (e.g., the skills of primitive tribes vs. the skills of humans inWestern civilization) inspired by these interactions were probably proposed bydifferent “minds” (i.e., different ways of perceiving the environment). This argumentis in accordance with the ideas of Jaynes (1976) on consciousness as a social benefitfor humans. The formation of human consciousness is perhaps connected not onlywith the development of reflective linguistic skills (as proposed by Jaynes), but alsoinspired by humans’ separation from nature and further opposition to the environ-ment. Such a position is not widespread in sociology and has not been investigatedthoroughly. Thus, Berger and Luckmann (1989) directly separated biological equip-ment from institutional patterns; they accounted for the latter as a fully social product:“habitualization provides the direction and the specialization of activity that is lackingin man’s biological equipment” (p.53). As I have demonstrated, this position seemsvery short-sighted, as it cuts sociology off from an enormous research field and oftenleads to misleading conclusions. This research position creates an unfavorable back-ground for integrative interdisciplinary efforts, knocking common ground out fromunder their feet.

Conclusion

The analysis of ideas on consciousness developed in sociological research and a set ofideas about the functioning of consciousness from the perspective of cognitive neuro-science has revealed obstacles and possibilities for the integration of different researchperspectives and the development of a neurosociology of consciousness. The basicobstacles to the success of this approach involve the distinctions between the terminol-ogies and epistemic cultures of various disciplines and the absence of consensusmethodological tools and communication skills for interdisciplinary research.However, even simple consideration of the findings of cognitive neuroscience—as theyare shown in the present article—has already created positive results for sociology. First,examination of the relevance and consideration of the heuristics of nonsociological ideason consciousness helps in understanding the weaknesses of the sociological position.One suchweakness is the discussion of consciousness without clear ideas about what the


brain is and how it is connected with consciousness. Feelings of intellectual inconve-nience, which have accompanied my attempts to simply combine disciplinaryapproaches to consciousness, are connected with the second positive result of thisconsideration for sociology. As a result of such research, it became possible to formulateunconventional and unusual hypotheses for both sociology and cognitive neuroscience;such research also revealed that simply placing neuroscientific ideas into sociologydistorts them. However, even under such dangers and the accompanying intellectualinconveniences, similar research involving non-sociological ideas on consciousnessenrich the sociological picture of the world, strengthen its position, expand the tradi-tional framework of sociological research on consciousness, and open prospects for newresearch directions. Finally, though it shows the principal distinctions between them, theanalysis of the representations of consciousness in sociology and cognitive neurosciencehas indicated the possibility of their integration at a new level—in research beyond thetraditional frameworks of sociology and cognitive neuroscience. An optimal strategy forthe neurosociology of consciousnesses is its primary development without a rigidbinding to sociology or neuroscience, as such bridging sets restrictive frameworks forresearch and obstructs the proposal of new issues. If we employ such a strategy, we willbecome free in our quest. Thus, the main goal is not to somehow fit sociologicalrepresentations of consciousness to the conceptions of cognitive neuroscience, or viceversa, but to search for possibilities and develop research tools that will allow theverification of new hypotheses. This should be done without reflecting upon what ispossible vs. impossible within the limits of existing disciplines. The primary purpose isthe consideration of the social roles of neural activity underlying the conscious cognitiveprocesses that appear in social behavior, interactions, institutions, and so on. As a resultof this research, the creation and development of a new research area—the neuro-sociology of consciousnesses—might become possible.

Acknowledgments I am most grateful to Nikita A. Kharlamov for valuable comments and suggestions onthe first version of this manuscript. I thank Elvira Muckelroy for her improvement the language of the article.

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Yulia S. Shkurko (PhD in Sociology) is at the University of Russian Academy of Education in NizhnyNovgorod, Russia. She currently researches the interconnections between cognitive, as well as neuralactivity underlying them, and social processes. She focuses on the issues of consciousness, emotions,decision making, social interaction, and social changes.


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