WHAT? "Non-conscious perception": isn't that an oxymoron; isn't anything like that SENSATION?? NO. Such conclusions involve one believing he/she knows all the sorts of species-typical basic, primary kinds of perception AND that all that is innate is present at birth or in infancy; THESE [mere] beliefs, very likely are associated with incorrect ill-founded (and groundless) pseudo-'assumptions': these quickly leading to wrongful conclusions -- these conclusions often also "taken" (put forward) as "assumptions". A LOT of this is part of our "culture" based on the views and ways of old-time philosophers. Staying grounded and doing all one can to be well-founded, based on what little reliable and true data exists, I HAVE SHOWN THESE bad things TO BE THE CASE IN MY WRITINGS.
I do believe that the inception (the beginning, just the beginning) of cognitive-developmental stages occur as perceptual shifts, each with 2 phases being non-conscious, and with 2 later stages involving attention. [ Why? Let's face it: BIOLOGY does not likely need our attention for beginning all major developments, and maybe not for ANY, for that matter. ]
I believe, based on hundreds of pages of realistic, grounded, reading and empirical thinking, and very mindful of good, central data -- especially, specifically: on the Memories (and most-notable the importance of visual-spacial memory for all higher organisms) and on the likely actual ubiquitous-ness of associative learning -- that these "perceptual shifts" EXIST AND are subtle overt directly observable behavior patterns (seen in real-time), detectable NOW with the new eye-tracking technology (and computer-assisted analysis). As empiricists, we MUST believe this, if we do not know better.
Way back in 1985 I did propose a very basic similar well-founded outline on how to very empirically start a human ethogram, in the way indicated. ONLY PROBLEM (but it was a BIG one) was that the type of hypotheses, WERE AT THAT TIME, _NOT_ TESTABLE. [ (I did, way back then, start to show quite well some of the major interpretation problems due to "pseudo-assumptionism" ; in more recent writings I have found the baseless beliefs, serving as basic "assumptions", behind these other assumptions -- all "spelled out".) ]
Most importantly:
The fact of the matter is that NOW (in the present) such hypotheses have become researchable: the type of hypotheses -- now further specified in recent Collected Essays (and a connected Comment and Replies) -- can NOW be tested/verified , specifically with eye-tracking technology (and, perhaps, also using computer-assisted analysis). (I have waited over thirty years for this.)
The 328 pages of NEW (< 1 yr old) supporting essays (the Collected Essays), fully explicating and further and completely justifying the perspective, AND refining and specifying the hypotheses, are now available.
Links to both the main 1985 160-page paper (still good and needed to be read), a treatise, entitled "A Human Ethogram ... ", and the Collected Essays (of 328 pages) can be found through the researchgate link:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_some_BIG_Reasons_that_A_Human_Ethogram_is_important_reading_for_all_interested_in_human_behavior_empiricism_incl_Gen_Art_Intell
(Expand the essay at that link, above, to see the links to the important paper and essays.)
In addition, for your convenience, I shall provide (with this Post) AN attachment (attached as the rich-text document, Comment2Replies.rtf): this contains the later posts (in a Comment and Replies), associated with the Collected Essays. That will give you a "taste" of things.
P.S. WordPad on a PC will open a rich-text document
Note to Researchgate: WHY when one clicks-away from the page where one is writing a question, does the question disappear?? AND, THEN, also: later entire paragraphs of the essay ALSO JUST SPONTANEOUSLY DISAPPEAR???
If people think I could write better, MAYBE I DID !!
A little more qualitative description (of possible related states), having to do with the new perspective (on RESEARCHABLE "perceptual shifts"):
Think of visual-spacial memory. Imagine that what's there has become well-integrated and consolidated. At that point "free space" may be in v-s memory; but, this will NOT be arbitrary "space" but an actual "gap" in what you need to know (a "gap" in the v-s memory you are USING in important contexts).
This "gap" will be the basis of at least the early phases of a "perceptual shift" -- where you (as an organism; not YOU as an attender) will be "looking for" proper circumstances and proper content to "fill the gap" and you, the organism, will soon FIND that needed for "answers" and THEN soon come to realize with it: that content or sort of content -- actually IN YOUR CURRENT ENVIRONMENT -- with your attention (specifically: in phase 3 of the "perceptual shift").
This would likely occur not only at the beginning of a new cognitive-developmental stage, but perhaps occur several times as different "domains" are dealt with (it is possible, of course, that the process, as it reoccurs , will become more efficient).
I hope all this helps you imagine these possible empirically-verifiable states. Now, I have gone 2 steps beyond what I once thought necessary: I have hypothesized phases in/of the "perceptual shifts" (trying, you might say, to "channel" biology -- a reasonable careful sequential process -- in important behavioral contexts) ( P.S. do remember, now, that behavior IS BIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING).
AND now, secondly, I have specified how this likely IS in/with-regard-to a certain type of Memory (v-s). I am quite sure there is little more I can do -- and, it seems there should be little more I would have to do. I am retired and MUST leave hypothesis-testing (and even some hypotheses formulation) to modern investigators, using eye-tracking technology (and computer-assisted analysis) -- things I have never used or even seen.
Please "carry on".
I hope I have now indicated clearly-enough the type of hypotheses there can be and which could be investigated -- an 'answer' to something I was first asked over 30 years ago, when I had essentially no answer.
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