Phenomenological control as cold control.

Abstract

We first review recent work from our laboratory, which construes hypnotizability as an example of a more general trait of capacity for phenomenological control, which people can use to create subjective experiences in many nonhypnotic contexts where those experiences fulfill people’s goals. Second, we review recent work, which construes phenomenological control as a specifically metacognitive process, where intentional cognitive and motor action occurs without awareness of specific intentions (cold control theory). In terms of the reach of phenomenological control, we argue that various laboratory phenomena, namely vicarious pain, mirror-touch synesthesia, and the rubber hand illusion are to an unknown degree a construction of phenomenological control. The argument can of course be extended in principle to other findings. In terms of the reach of cold control, we present a new theory of intentional binding and show how intentional binding can measure the absence of conscious intentions in the hypnotic context. We obtain no evidence that cold control confers abilities beyond the changes in the metacognitive monitoring it postulates, and we explore the negative correlation between mindfulness and cold control viewed as a lack of mindfulness of intentions.