Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188

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Consciousness and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/concog

Conscious contents as reflexive processes: Evidence from

the habituation of high-level cognitions
Sabrina Bhangal a, Allison K. Allen a, Mark W. Geisler a, Ezequiel Morsella a,b,⇑
a
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, United States
b
Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Reflexes are often insuppressible, predictable, and susceptible to external control. In con-
Received 4 September 2015 trast, conscious thoughts have been regarded as whimsical, ‘offline,’ and shielded from
Revised 8 December 2015 external control. Recent advances suggest that conscious thoughts are more reflex-like
Accepted 20 February 2016
and susceptible to external control than previously thought. In one paradigm, high-level
conscious thoughts (subvocalizations) are triggered by external control, as a function of
external stimuli and experimenter-induced action sets. It has been hypothesized that these
Keywords:
conscious contents are activated involuntarily and in a reflex-like manner. If such is the
Reflexive Imagery Task
Ironic processing
case, then these activations should possess a well-known property of the reflex: habitua-
Habituation tion. Accordingly, we found that involuntary high-level cognitions (subvocalizations)
Involuntary cognitions habituated (i.e., were less likely to arise) after repeated stimulation. As in the case of the
Mind wandering habituation of a reflex, this novel effect was stimulus-specific. We discuss the implications
of this finding for theories about consciousness and about psychopathological phenomena
involving undesired, involuntary cognitions.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reflexes (e.g., the pupillary reflex) are often insuppressible, predictable, and capable of being controlled by external stim-
uli (e.g., light). Conscious thoughts, however, often seem to be shielded from such external control. While hearing a lecture,
for example, one’s conscious mind is free, in a sense, from the external stimulus (the lecture). It could be occupied, not by
thoughts pertaining to the lecture, but by musings that are unassociated to the current environment. Similarly, when
attempting to study a textbook, one might find oneself remembering a funny joke. Often, such thoughts arise out of the blue.
These anecdotes suggest that the conscious mind is whimsical, unpredictable, ‘offline,’ and free from the reins of external
control (Barron, Riby, Greer, & Smallwood, 2011; Shallice, 1972; Smallwood & Schooler, 2006; Wegner & Bargh, 1998). This
widely held view, in combination with important theoretical developments (e.g., Fodor, 1975; Fodor, 1983; Schacter & Addis,
2007; Smallwood & Schooler, 2006), leads one to conclude that the generation of conscious thoughts is very different in nat-
ure from that of the standard reflex.
Contrary to this conclusion, some theorists (e.g., Freud, 1938; James, 1890; Miller, 1959; Vygotsky, 1962; Wegner, 1989)
have proposed that conscious thoughts can arise in a reflex-like manner that is predictable and susceptible to external con-
trol when the appropriate conditions are present (see review in Allen, Wilkins, Gazzaley, & Morsella, 2013). Seldom are these
conditions present in the uncontrolled physical environments of everyday life. With this in mind, it is worth considering that
the reflex, too, requires certain conditions for its generation. Reflexes such as the pupillary reflex and the patellar reflex can

⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, EP 301, San Francisco, CA 94132-4168,
United States.
E-mail address: morsella@sfsu.edu (E. Morsella).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.02.012
1053-8100/Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
178 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188

fail to arise if, for example, one actively closes one eye or contracts the leg muscles, respectively. It has been hypothesized
that the reflex-like nature of the generation of some conscious thoughts (or, more accurately, conscious contents; Merker,
2007) reflects the fact that, in most circumstances, the generation of conscious contents is ‘encapsulated,’ meaning that
one has no conscious access regarding the workings of these generative mechanisms and that one cannot directly influence
these mechanisms (Firestone & Scholl, 2014; Firestone & Scholl, in press; Merrick, Godwin, Geisler, & Morsella, 2014). This
view of the generation of conscious contents is consistent with the historical idea that one is conscious only of the outputs of
processes, but not of the processes themselves (Fodor, 1983; Lashley, 1956; Miller, 1962), as in the case of unconscious infer-
ences (Helmholtz, 1856).
Perceptual mechanisms giving rise to illusions are often said to be encapsulated, because one’s knowledge or beliefs about
the true nature of the perceptual stimuli giving rise to the illusion cannot influence the illusion: One might know that the
two lines of the Müller–Lyer illusion are equal in length, but this does not change in any way how the lines look in the illu-
sion. In action control, the generation of urges, too, is often encapsulated. Consider, for example, when one attempts to hold
one’s breath while underwater, but one cannot ‘turn off’ the conscious inclination to inhale (Morsella, 2005). In general,
action-related urges cannot be suppressed voluntarily, even when doing so would constitute the most adaptive course of
action in a given situation (Morsella, 2005; Olsson & Phelps, 2004; Öhman & Mineka, 2001). These urges are triggered into
existence by certain stimulus conditions. Often, the urges are less controllable than is overt behavior, leading to the insight
that, although inclinations can be suppressed behaviorally, they often cannot be suppressed mentally (Bargh & Morsella,
2008).
The encapsulation of conscious contents is not limited to (relatively) low-level processes such as perception and action-
related urges. As noted by Helmholtz (1856), it can occur for higher-level, non-perceptual processes such as automatic word
reading. An unnatural and sophisticated process, word reading requires years of extensive training, and it involves multiple
stages of processing. Helmholtz notes that, when an orthographic stimulus is presented to one, the stimulus automatically
triggers a conscious representation of the phonological form of the word. For example, CAT yields /k/, /œ/, and /t/. In word
reading, the visual stimulus (i.e., the orthographic stimulus) triggers a conscious content that is associated, not with the
visual modality, but with audition (Levelt, 1989).
Ironic processing (Wegner, Schneider, Carter, & White, 1987) is another example of the generation of conscious contents
from unconscious mechanisms that are susceptible to external control. This particular type of processing causes one to think
about something (e.g., white bears) when instructed to not think about that thing (Wegner et al., 1987). In Wegner’s (1994)
model of ironic processing, the ironic effect arises from the interaction between two distinct mechanisms. One mechanism,
known as the intentional operating process, actively seeks desired mental contents (e.g., to be calm). This particular operating
process tends to be capacity-limited, effortful, and consciously mediated (Wegner, 1994). The other mechanism is an auton-
omous, monitoring process. This mechanism examines mental contents to identify specific contents that indicate a failure to
maintain a desired mental state. Detecting contents that are incompatible with desired goals is imperative for successful cog-
nitive control (Cohen, Dunbar, & McClelland, 1990). Once the monitor detects a content that conflicts with a desired state,
then the likelihood of that particular content entering consciousness increases.
These two mechanisms normally function harmoniously. However, when the goal is to not activate a specific mental con-
tent (e.g., content X), then the interaction between the two processes leads to undesired outcomes, as in the case of ironic
effects (e.g., the activation of content X in consciousness). This situation ensues because (a) the ironic monitor reflexively
triggers into consciousness mental contents that are incompatible with the current goal, and (b) the operating process can-
not actively preclude mental contents from entering consciousness (Wegner, 1994). Ironic effects are robust. Research has
shown that even the threat of electric shock cannot pressure one into suppressing ironic thoughts (see discussion of relevant
findings by McGranahan (1940), Sears (1943) and Wegner et al. (1987)). Most important for present purposes, in Wegner’s
(1994) model, that which causes the entry into consciousness of unintentional contents (i.e., the monitoring process) is an
automatic, unconscious process that operates much as a reflex does.
Building on the research discussed above (i.e., Freud, 1938; Helmholtz, 1856; James, 1890; Miller, 1959; Vygotsky, 1962;
Wegner, 1989) and on the experimental approaches of Ach (1905) and Gollwitzer (1999), Allen et al. (2013) developed a new
paradigm, the Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT), which allows one to investigate how high-level conscious contents can be acti-
vated reliably and unintentionally through external control. In the most basic version of the paradigm (Allen et al., 2013),
subjects are presented on each trial with the image of an object (e.g., a triangle presented for 4 s) after being instructed
to not subvocalize (i.e., name in their minds but not aloud) the name of the object. Subjects fail to suppress such subvocal-
izations on the majority of the trials: 86% in Allen et al. (2013); 87% in Cho, Godwin, Geisler, and Morsella (2014); and 73% in
Merrick, Farnia, Jantz, Gazzaley, and Morsella (2015). When this intriguing effect of involuntary subvocalization arises, it
arises only moments (2 s) after the visual stimulus appears (M = 1451.27 ms [SD = 611.42] in Allen et al., 2013;
M = 2323.91 ms [SD = 1183.01] in Cho et al., 2014; M = 1745.97 ms [SD = 620.86] in Merrick et al., 2015).
For this covert, object naming response, perceptual and conceptual-semantic processing of a stimulus (e.g., the image of a
house) must occur prior to the activation of the phonological form (e.g., /haus/) of the object name (Levelt, 1989). The con-
sciously experienced form of the representation of the word, or, more accurately, of the phonological form (e.g., /haus/), can
be construed as action-related because it is considered to be a ‘sub-vocalized’ version of the word (Slevc & Ferreira, 2006;
Vygotsky, 1962), which is isomorphic with what would be experienced auditorily if the word had been uttered aloud
(Levelt, 1989). Consistent with this conclusion, in the speech production literature, subvocalizations are regarded as
 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188 179

‘pre-articulatory outputs’ (Levelt, 1989; Slevc & Ferreira, 2006), a term that conveys the intimate link between subvocaliza-
tion and overt action (Morsella & Bargh, 2010).
In a more complex variant of the RIT (e.g., Merrick et al., 2015), subjects were instructed to (a) not subvocalize the name
of visual objects and, in addition, (b) not count the number of letters composing the object names. On a substantial propor-
tion of trials (30%), participants experienced both kinds of involuntary thought, with the experience of one kind of thought
following the experience of the other kind of thought. This effect is noteworthy because it is the first demonstration of the
external control of a sequence of two thoughts in the stream of consciousness. Importantly, each kind of thought arose from
distinct, high-level processes (i.e., that of object naming versus object counting).
The RIT effect is a rich psychological phenomenon that involves distinct kinds of multiple stages of processing. For exam-
ple, in the basic version of the task, there is first the induction of set (e.g., the instruction to not subvocalize the name of
objects). Second, the action set is held in mind for a time, beginning at the start of the trial and ending once the stimulus
is presented. Interestingly, during this period, there may be some occurrence of what has historically been referred to as
imageless thought (cf. Woodworth, 1915), in which action sets can influence ongoing behavioral dispositions without influ-
encing the conscious field in any notable way. Third, there is the presentation of the stimulus, which leads to the involuntary
entry of action-related contents (in this case, the subvocalization of the name of the object). Entry into consciousness of a
particular content (the subvocalization) remains one of the greatest enigmas in psychological science and neuroscience
(Crick & Koch, 2003).
For the sake of thoroughness, we will now present the reader with a demonstration of the RIT effect. Your task is to not
subvocalize the name of an object that will be presented somewhere in the next sentence. Here is the stimulus (I). Did you
experience the effect? If so, you have experienced what the vast majority of subjects experience in the RIT. If you experienced
the RIT effect, did it feel as though the word ‘‘star” just popped into awareness? If so, then you have experienced what many
subjects report during the RIT. To them, the RIT effect ‘just happens’ and is not simply an artifact of high-level strategic pro-
cesses (Bhangal, Merrick, & Morsella, 2015). For instance, in one version of the RIT, participants reported on the majority of
trials (proportion = .71, SE = .03) that the subvocalization effect felt ‘‘immediate” (Bhangal et al., 2015). Hence, it seems unli-
kely that participants are thinking of the object name incidentally, through the following kind of reasoning process. ‘‘You told
me to not think of the name of the object. The object name is X. Therefore, I should not think of X.” Supporting the view that
the effect is automatic, it has been found that, in many cases, the effect arises too quickly for it to be due to strategic pro-
cessing (Allen et al., 2013; Cho et al., 2014; Merrick et al., 2015). In addition, the effect occurs under conditions of cognitive
load (Cho et al., 2014), in which it is difficult for subjects to carry out strategic processes. (That the effect is experienced as
automatic and immediate is consistent with Wegner’s (1994) model of ironic processing, discussed above.)
One possibility is that the RIT effect stems, not from automatic processes, but from experimental demand. However, such
an alternative hypothesis is inconsistent with the observation that the RIT effect is influenced systematically by stimulus
attributes such as word frequency. In Bhangal et al. (2015), involuntary subvocalizations to visual objects were influenced
systematically by this variable: High-frequency words (e.g., HOUSE) were more likely to lead to an effect than low-frequency
words (e.g., KITE). In addition, the former entered consciousness more quickly than the latter. These effects are difficult to
explain in terms of experimental demand. Such an artifact of experimental demand would require for participants to know
how word frequency should influence responses in an experiment.
As an experimental paradigm, the RIT has several positive features that render it ideal for investigating the generation of
conscious contents. First, the RIT effect is reliable and easy to replicate. As noted above, it occurs in the majority of subjects
and in the majority of experimental trials. Second, the effect occurs through external control, by the experimenter, and is
unintentional, which reduces the likelihood of artifacts from demand characteristics. Third, RIT effects are predicted by sev-
eral frameworks (e.g., by Gollwitzer, 1999; Miller, 1959; Morsella, 2005; Wegner, 1989). Some of these frameworks (e.g.,
Morsella et al., in press) propose that, in most cases, the generation of conscious contents is automatic. Fourth, the RIT pro-
vides a portal for the understanding of the nature of entry into consciousness, which, as mentioned before, remains one of
the greatest enigmas in psychological science and neuroscience (Crick & Koch, 2003). Last, the RIT builds incrementally on
previous research (e.g., Gaskell, Wells, & Calam, 2001; Smári, 2001; Wegner et al., 1987). Thus, the RIT, involving a phe-
nomenon that is robust, multifaceted, and reliable, yields the kind of research (e.g., Allen et al., 2013; Wegner, 1989) that
is important for progress in the field of psychological science (Nosek, Spies, & Motyl, 2012). (See Allen et al., 2013,
p. 1320, for a list of other features that render the RIT a fruitful paradigm for the study of consciousness.)
The foregoing reveals that the RIT, as a paradigm for the study of consciousness, possesses several positive characteristics.
Moreover, it seems that some evidence suggests that the RIT effect is not simply an artifact of experimental demand, social
desirability, or strategic processing. Nevertheless, much remains to be elucidated about the nature of the RIT effect. In addi-
tion, further evidence is needed for the claim that the generation of conscious content in the RIT is reflex-like and for the
more general proposal that the generation of most conscious contents is automatic (Morsella et al., in press). With this in
mind, we reasoned as follows. If the RIT effect is reflex-like, then the effect should possess some of the characteristics
and properties that reflexes are known to possess. In the present experimental project, we focused on one well-studied prop-
erty of reflexes: habituation.
Habituation, perhaps the most thoroughly investigated property of the reflex (across species and for both low-level and
high-level processes) and the most feasible method by which to weaken a reflexive response innocuously, has been defined
as a ‘‘behavioral response decrement that results from repeated stimulation and that does not involve sensory adaptation/
sensory fatigue or motor fatigue” (Rankin et al., 2009, p. 136). For example, the pupillary reflex, in response to a given
180 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188

stimulus, will decrease if that stimulus is presented repeatedly within a short period of time (Peeke & Herz, 1973). One char-
acteristic of habituation is that the repeated application of an eliciting stimulus within a certain time period will lead to a
‘‘progressive decrease in some parameter of a response to an asymptotic level. . . In many cases, the decrement is exponen-
tial” (Rankin et al., 2009, p. 136). Often, the decrement is a negative exponential function (Peeke & Herz, 1973; Rankin et al.,
2009). Another characteristic of habituation is that it is stimulus-specific: Following habituation, the presentation of a dif-
ferent stimulus results in the ‘‘recovery of the habituated response” (Rankin et al., 2009, p. 137). This characteristic reveals
that habituation is not simply the result of sensory adaptation or of response fatigue (Rankin et al., 2009).
In our experiment, we investigated whether repeated presentation of the same RIT stimulus (e.g., a line drawing of a
star) across a series of stimulus presentations (n = 10) habituates the RIT effect for that specific stimulus, such that the RIT
effect is more likely to arise in the first trials than in the subsequent trials. We refer to each presentation of the same
stimulus as an instantiation. One null hypothesis is that the RIT effect is too strong a response to be susceptible to habit-
uation, which is known to be the case for strong responses or stimuli (Rankin et al., 2009). Another null hypothesis is that
RIT data are too variable to yield a clean pattern of results that reflects habituation across the ten instantiations. Based on
the theorizing that the RIT effect is reflex-like (Allen et al., 2013) and that, in most cases, the generation of conscious con-
tent is automatic (Morsella et al., in press), we predict that the experimental factor Instantiation will lead to a significant
effect in which the RIT effect is more likely to arise in the first instantiations of a stimulus than in the subsequent instan-
tiations of the stimulus. In addition, we predict that the obtained pattern of results will resemble that of the habituation of
a reflex, in which the habituation is stimulus-specific and in which there is a progressive decrease of the response under
investigation.
Data revealing that the RIT effect habituates would provide evidence that the effect, which involves a high-level response
(subvocalization), is generated in a reflex-like manner. It would also provide further evidence for the claim that the gener-
ation of conscious contents is usually automatic. Moreover, the evidence would provide further support for the claim that the
RIT effect is not an artifact of social desirability or experimental demand. Regarding the latter, such an artifact would require
for subjects to have theories regarding how the repeated presentation of a stimulus should yield different responses over
time. In addition, the evidence would have some implications for the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the gen-
eration of undesired conscious contents in some psychopathological phenomena (e.g., in obsessions and intrusive cogni-
tions; Magee, Harden, & Teachmen, 2012; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008).

1. Method

1.1. Participants

San Francisco State University students (n = 44; 32 females; MAge = 22.3 years, SE = 0.84) participated for course credit.
The involvement of human participants in our project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at San Francisco State
University.

1.2. Stimuli and Apparatus

Stimuli were presented on an Apple iMac computer monitor (50.8 cm) with a viewing distance of approximately 48 cm.
Stimulus presentation was controlled by PsyScope software (Cohen, MacWhinney, Flatt, & Provost, 1993). All questions and
instructions were written in black 36-point Helvetica font on a white background.
Participants were shown a series of 40 well-known objects (e.g., house; stimulus list in Appendix A) displayed within a
centered visual angle of 5.96°  6.56° (5  5.5 cm; Fig. 1). We selected visual objects that yield high ‘name agreement’ and
that had been used successfully in previous research (Allen et al., 2013; Morsella & Miozzo, 2002; Snodgrass & Vanderwart,
1980). We took care to make sure that the objects would be as dissimilar as possible from each other, both in terms of
phonology (e.g., beginning with different phonemes as often as possible) and in terms of perceptuo-semantic features
(e.g., no two objects could be categorized in an obvious way). We also obtained word frequency values for each object name
(M = 94.91, SE = 18.86) through the SUBTLEXUS Word Frequency Database (Brysbaert & New, 2009).

1.3. Procedures

Instructions were presented on a computer screen. Participants were informed that they would be shown a series of
visual objects. Before the presentation of each object, participants were instructed to not think of the name of the object.
If participants happened to think of the object name, they pressed the spacebar with their left hand as soon as they thought
of it. Participants were instructed to keep their eyes focused on the center of the screen at all times and to keep their left
hand rested on the spacebar at all times. If the participants did not think of the name of the object that was presented, then
they did not respond in any way. Participants were informed that the objects would remain on the screen for a fixed period
of time, regardless of whether or not they pressed the spacebar. Participants first completed a practice trial. All participants
were shown the same stimulus for the practice trial. The stimulus used in this practice trial was never presented during the
critical trials.
 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188 181

Fig. 1. Sample visual stimuli. (Not drawn to scale.)

Each of the 40 objects was presented in a series of ten consecutive trials (Fig. 2). Before the presentation of each object,
which was selected at random, the instruction ‘Do Not Think of the Name of the Object’ was displayed in the center of the
screen. Participants indicated their readiness to initiate trials by pressing the return key. Once participants indicated their
readiness, a fixation cross (+) appeared in the center of the screen for 700 ms. After the presentation of the fixation cross,

Fig. 2. Schematic depiction of a typical trial. Only three of the ten instantiations are illustrated. (Not drawn to scale.)
182 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188

an object appeared and was displayed for 4 s. During the trial, participants could indicate whether they thought of the name
of the object by pressing the spacebar. After each object was presented across ten trials, a note appeared (4 s) notifying the
participants that they would be presented with a new object: ‘‘You are about to see a new object. Reminder: Please keep your
eyes focused on the center of the screen.”
In our experiment, we took several measures to ensure that participants always kept their visual focus on the center of
the screen. First, the experimenter who trained the participant remained in the experimental room and observed the behav-
ior of the participant throughout the entire session. In this arrangement, the experimenter could detect whether the partic-
ipant failed to engage continuously with the computer program. Second, to advance to the next experimental trial,
participants had to indicate their readiness to commence the new trial by pressing a button. This could be done only after
the participant noticed that the previous trial had terminated. Third, we designed a funneled debriefing questionnaire
(described below) to detect participants who, to thwart the RIT effect, performed such strategies (e.g., looking away from
the computer screen).
Once participants completed the experiment, they responded to a series of funneled debriefing questions (following the
procedures of Bargh & Chartrand, 2000), which included general questions to assess whether participants (a) were aware of
the purpose of the study, (b) had any strategies for completing the task, (c) had anything interfere with their performance on
the task, and (d) felt that their ability to suppress thinking of the name of the object improved as the trials proceeded. Impor-
tantly, we also asked participants about whether they used a strategy when trying to not think of the name of the object.
Because our sample included participants who were non-native speakers of English, we also included a series of questions
to assess whether participants (e) thought of the name of the object in a language other than English, (f) pressed the spacebar
in such a situation, and (g) had a strategy for completing the task if they happened to think of the name of the object in more
than one language.

2. Results

We replicated the RIT effect of Allen et al. (2013): During the first presentation (i.e., instantiation = 1) of a visual stimulus,
involuntary subvocalizations occurred on a high proportion of the trials (M = .77, SD = .25, SE = .04), a proportion that was
significantly different from zero, t(43) = 20.89, p < .0001. The same significant effect was found with arcsine transformations
of the proportion data, t(43) = 21.87, p < .0001. (Arcsine transformations are often used to statistically normalize data that
are in the form of proportions.) The mean latency of this RIT effect in response to the first presentation of a stimulus was
1526.37 ms (SD = 451.94, SE = 68.92). As in Allen et al. (2013), exceedingly short latencies  200 ms; only 10 out of 1760 tri-
als) were excluded from this and subsequent latency analyses. The present latency effect and the effect regarding the pro-
portion of trials yielding involuntary subvocalizations resemble that which was found in previous studies (Allen et al., 2013;
Cho et al., 2014; Merrick et al., 2015).
As revealed in Fig. 3, the experimental factor Instantiation had an effect on our RIT measure (i.e., the proportion of trials in
which unintentional subvocalizations arise), F(9, 387) = 60.19, p < .0001 (g2p = .58). These data are not consistent with the
hypotheses that the RIT effect is too strong a response to be susceptible to habituation and that RIT data are too variable
to yield a clean pattern of results in our habituation paradigm. A similar effect was obtained in a by-item analysis, in which
the factor Visual Object and not Participant, served as the unit of analysis, F(9, 351) = 205.21, p < .0001. The observation that
the effect of Instantiation was obtained in both by-subject and by-item analyses corroborates that the effect was not an arti-
fact resulting from only a subset of the stimuli or only a subset of the participants.
As is clear in Fig. 3, involuntary subvocalizations are more likely during the first instantiations of a stimulus than during
the last instantiations of that stimulus. The pattern of results displayed in Fig. 3 resembles that of a reflex (described above).
Moreover, it seems that, as in the case of reflexes, the habituation was stimulus-specific, such that, after the RIT effect to one

Fig. 3. Mean proportion of instantiations in which the RIT effect (subvocalizations) occurred, as a function of instantiation number (1–10). Error bars
indicate SEs.
 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188 183

Fig. 4. Mean proportion of instantiations in which the RIT effect (subvocalizations) occurred, as a function of instantiation number (1–10) and trial number.
Only a sample of the 40 trials are shown. Top row: Trials 1–3, presenting the first three stimulus objects. Middle row: The middle trials (trials = 19–21).
Bottom row: The final trials (trials = 38–40).

visual object underwent habituation, the RIT effect returned to normal levels upon the presentation of a different visual
object (Fig. 4). This conclusion is supported by another bit of evidence. If one divides the experimental session of 400 trials
into four blocks (Block 1, 2, 3, and 4), one finds that the RIT effect (proportion of trials) is comparable across the fours blocks:
Block 1 (M = .46, SD = .33), Block 2 (M = .46, SD = .34), Block 3 (M = .44, SD = .35), and Block 4 (M = .46, SD = .34), F(3, 129)
= 0.28, p = .84. This observation is consistent with the view that there are no notable habituation effects, practice effects,
or fatigue effects across stimuli. Such a pattern of results is unlikely to arise from the artifacts of sensory adaptation or
response fatigue. Interestingly, examination of the latency data revealed that the factor Instantiation had no effect on when,
during one instantiation, the RIT effect happened to arise, F(9, 324) = 0.41, p = .93 (Fig. 5). Thus, the factor Instantiation influ-
enced the likelihood of an RIT effect, with the effect being more likely for the early instantiations than the late instantiations,
but the factor had no influence on the timing at which the effect arises during a particular instantiation.

3. Discussion

The view that the generation of conscious contents is protected from external control has dominated both lay and scien-
tific circles. Recent theoretical developments (e.g., Firestone & Scholl, in press; Morsella et al., in press) and experimental
evidence (e.g., Allen et al., 2013) suggest that, contrary to this prevalent view, the generation of conscious contents is usually
automatic and reflex-like. (These current developments are consistent with Fodor, 1983; Helmholtz, 1856; Lashley, 1956;
184 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188

Fig. 5. Mean latency of the RIT effect (subvocalization), as a function of instantiation number (1–10). Error bars indicate SEs.

Miller, 1959; Miller, 1962; Vygotsky, 1962.) In the uncontrolled physical environments of everyday life, such external control
is not always obvious. However, in the controlled conditions of a laboratory setting, such as those of the RIT, the reflex-like
nature of the generation of conscious contents is easier to appreciate.
For our project, we reasoned that, if the RIT effect is reflex-like, then it should possess some of the characteristics and
properties that reflexes are known to have. We focused on well-studied of reflexes: habituation. As is clear in Fig. 3, our
experimental data revealed that the RIT effect, which in the present case involved the high-level content of subvocalization,
seems to habituate much as a reflex does. The pattern of results, including that habituation seemed to be stimulus-specific
(Fig. 4), resembles that of a reflex and cannot be accounted for solely in terms of sensory adaptation or response fatigue. In
addition, together with other evidence (e.g., Bhangal et al., 2015; Cho et al., 2014; discussed above), the present findings are
difficult to explain in terms of social desirability or experimental demand. For the pattern of results to be due to experimen-
tal demand or social desirability, subjects would have to have theories regarding how responses should change as a function
of the number of instantiations of a given stimulus. Moreover, we propose that it is unlikely that the present pattern of
results stems from practice effects in which subjects actually improve their ability to suppress involuntary subvocalizations
as a function of trial number. Such an alternative hypothesis is inconsistent with the observation that the habituation
appears to be stimulus-specific (Fig. 4). In summary, we believe that the present pattern of results is explained most parsi-
moniously as reflecting habituation, which is known to arise for both low-level and high-level mental processes (Rankin
et al., 2009).
From our standpoint, that which renders our effect to be ‘‘reflex-like” is, not so much that the subvocalizations were trig-
gered by external stimuli, but that these processes were triggered unintentionally. As in Freudian and Helmholtzian notions
of unconscious processing, the unintentional, automatic nature of the processing was used to distinguish reflex-like effects
from voluntary processes (see discussion in Bargh & Morsella, 2008). In our experiment, external stimuli set forth a sequence
of events (including semantic processing, lexical retrieval, and phonological processing) that led to the involuntary
subvocalizations. Similar, reflex-like effects could have been initiated and maintained by stimuli that are considered to be
‘‘internal,” as when internal stimuli trigger autonomic functions (e.g., peristalsis) or even in cognitive processes
(see Misirlisoy & Haggard, 2014; Sechenov, 1863/1965; Vygotsky, 1962).
Future experiments could assess, on a trial-by-trial basis (or, more precisely, an instantiation-by-instantiation basis),
whether participants experience the involuntary subvocalizations as arising ‘‘immediately,” as was done in Bhangal et al.
(2015). If data reveal that the effect is experienced as immediate, then this would corroborate the present finding that (a)
latencies of the RIT effect often were too short to reflect strategic processing, and (b) though the experimental factor Instan-
tiation influenced the likelihood of whether there was an RIT effect, the experimental factor did not influence when, during
the presentation of the stimulus, the effect occurred (Fig. 5). This finding regarding latency suggests that, in our participants,
the effect, when it occurs, might have been experienced as usually being immediate and out of the blue. Future research will
be required to understand more fully our null finding regarding latency.
Future investigations might also illuminate further the phenomenon of the habituation of mental processes by taking into
consideration the neuroscience literature regarding the related phenomena of (a) repetition suppression (Desimone &
Duncan, 1995), in which repeated exposure to the same stimulus results in a decreased neural response to that stimulus,
(b) similar, priming-induced decreases in neural responses (Schacter & Badgaiyan, 2001), and (c) the intriguing phenomenon
of semantic satiation (see neural evidence in Frenck-Mestre, Besson, & Pynte, 1997; Kounios, Kotz, & Holocomb, 2000), in
which the repeated production or perception of a word causes that word to lose its meaning and to then sound like
meaningless speech.
 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188 185

It is interesting to consider that emotional responses (e.g., the fear response), too, habituate, but that such responses seem
to be different in nature from the kinds of cognitive mechanisms giving rise to our RIT effect. For reasons that remain unspec-
ified, RIT effects are less likely to arise in situations involving the unintentional generation of emotional and incentive states
(Cho, Zarolia, Velasquez, & Morsella, 2015). For example, when presented with the instruction, ‘‘Do not make yourself feel
ecstatic,” one might succeed in complying with the instruction more easily than when presented with the instruction, ‘‘Do
not think of the name of the following object.” Perhaps the difference between these two RIT conditions reflects more than just
a matter of complexity. If so, the contrast between the two conditions can serve as a portal through which to explore the
differences between the control of cognition versus that of emotion. For instance, it might be that RIT effects are more likely
to arise for processes that would normally be amenable to direct cognitive control (e.g., when one wills to snap one’s finger
or think of a tree) than for processes arising only from indirect cognitive control (e.g., making oneself hungry by thinking of
certain foods; Morsella, Lanska, Berger, & Gazzaley, 2009; Morsella, Larson, & Bargh, 2010). (It is worth emphasizing that, in
many cases, subvocalizations are voluntary processes.) Interestingly, it might be the case that those processes for which one
normally has the most control (i.e., direct cognitive control) are the very processes that are most susceptible to ironic pro-
cessing in the RIT.
One limitation of our experiment is that the dependent measure is based on self-reports about conscious experiences.
Such introspections could be inaccurate because participants can forget or misremember the nature of conscious experiences
that occurred even only seconds ago (Block, 2007; see discussion of this limitation in Morsella et al., 2009). In addition, par-
ticipants’ reports can be based on heuristics or folk theories regarding how one should comport oneself in an experiment
involving introspection. We believe that the present data, together with the evidence discussed above (i.e., Bhangal et al.,
2015; Cho et al., 2014), cannot be explained solely by such heuristics or folk beliefs. In addition, it is unlikely that participants
are confabulating about the self-reports that, in our study, convey a pattern of systematic habituation that is stimulus-
specific. For other paradigms involving a similar kind of self-report, evidence from neuroimaging studies corroborates that
it is unlikely that participants confabulate about the occurrence of conscious thoughts (Mason et al., 2007; McVay & Kane,
2010; Mitchell et al., 2009; Wyland, Kelley, Macrae, Gordon, & Heatherton, 2003). Another limitation of our project is that
habituation occurred for cue-triggered high-level cognitions, which may be a special class of involuntary cognition. This type
of involuntary cognition might differ in important ways from involuntary cognitions that are purely endogenous in nature.
For example, the two types of involuntary cognitions may differ with respect to how they habituate, with the former being
less susceptible to habituation than the latter.
What is the difference between awareness of the unintentional subvocalization of an object name and the awareness of
the visual percept of the same object? One might construe the former as more ‘‘high-level” than the latter. However, regard-
ing the generation of high-level contents such as subvocalizations, it is important to appreciate that, when discussing uncon-
scious inference, Helmholtz (1856) was referring, not only to the unconscious generation of low-level contents (e.g., depth
perception), but also to the generation of high-level contents (e.g., automatic word reading). Thus, in terms of entry into con-
sciousness, many high-level contents (e.g., subvocalizations) ‘just happen’ in a manner resembling that of low-level contents
(Morsella et al., in press). Moreover, it has been argued (Morsella et al., in press) that, regarding the influence of these con-
scious contents upon voluntary action selection, these contents are functionally very similar.
The RIT effect is consistent with theoretical approaches in which conscious contents are construed as ‘action options’ for
voluntary action (e.g., Bargh & Morsella, 2008; Krisst, Montemayor, & Morsella, 2015; Morsella, 2005; Morsella et al., in
press). These options are generated in an encapsulated manner and, though they are activated in the conscious field, they
need not influence action directly (Allen et al., 2013). In the selection of voluntary action, a subset of these options are
selected for production, while others are not. It is important to note that this theorizing is relevant to Chomsky’s (1988)
observation that humans, unlike machines, are not only compelled to act one way or another but can also be inclined to
act a certain way. Our variant of the RIT reveals one way in which an action option could, through habituation, be excluded
from the conscious field, thereby being unable to influence voluntary action: If an action option (i.e., a conscious content) is
not in the conscious field, then it cannot influence voluntary action in any way (Morsella et al., in press). This is noteworthy
because, when regulating behavior to render it adaptive, it might be more effective to deal with maladaptive behaviors by
weakening the urges that lead to them rather than by dealing with the urges once they are already in consciousness
(Hofmann, Baumeister, Förster, & Vohs, 2012). It is known that, if one is fatigued or under some kind of mental load (e.g.,
cognitive load), maladaptive urges in consciousness are then more difficult to suppress (Baker, Piper, McCarthy, Majeskie,
& Fiore, 2004; Hofmann et al., 2012; Kavanagh, Andrade, & May, 2005). However, it could be argued that fatigue or cognitive
load cannot lead to the expression of action options that have not arisen in the conscious field in the first place. This reason-
ing complements the finding that people who are effective at self-regulation are so because they systematically avoid the
situations that are associated with maladaptive urges (Hofmann et al., 2012).
Our new data stem from a paradigm that is robust and reliable, yielding the kind of research that is different from stan-
dard ‘‘hypothesis testing” approaches and important for progress in the field of psychological science (Nosek et al., 2012).
The data are also noteworthy because, not only do they further illuminate the nature of conscious processing and provide
additional evidence regarding the validity of the RIT effect, but they provide information about the component mechanisms
that may be at play in psychopathological conditions that are associated with undesired thoughts (e.g., Magee et al., 2012;
Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008). In the literature, there is a long history of clinical techniques in which undesired conscious
contents (e.g., intrusive cognitions and obsessive thoughts) are diminished through the repeated experiencing of those con-
tents or through repeated or prolonged exposure to the stimuli associated with those contents (Walker, Hedberg, Clement, &
186 S. Bhangal et al. / Consciousness and Cognition 41 (2016) 177–188

Wright, 1981). It is our hope that our present data and paradigm yield additional information which will complement
insights about these important clinical findings. The present variant of the RIT might shed light on the mechanisms giving
rise to unwanted thoughts in psychopathology and how the activation of these thoughts might be influenced by an innocu-
ous experimental manipulation that induces habituation.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Center for Human Culture and Behavior at San Francisco State University. We
gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Pooya Razavi.

Appendix A

List of the visual objects (line drawings)

Anchor
Apple
Ball
Balloon
Bed
Book
Cake
Candle
Cat
Chair
Dog
Door
Envelope
Fire
Flower
Fork
Glasses
Gun
Hand
Heart
House
Key
Ladder
Lamp
Mouse
Mouth
Pencil
Pipe
Radio
Ring
Saw
Scissors
Star
Stool
Tie
Tree
Trophy
Umbrella
Wheel
Whistle

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