Editorial: Sub- and unconscious information processing in the human brain

Abstract

This Special Issue about sub- and unconscious information processing in the human brain finally became a collection of 6 accepted contributions, 2 articles, 2 reviews, 1 opinion and 1 concept paper. Even though more papers were submitted this rather small number of accepted contributions mirrors the still existing lack of focus on non-conscious human brain processes that surely influence human behavior to a much larger extent than one would ever imagine. Our brains contain evolutionary old neural structures that much more primitive organisms have in their brains too and crucially those old structures have more or the less the same functional properties regardless of what brain they belong to. Consciousness as an individual experience is a rather young evolutionary product, which means that those older structures that are strongly involved in the generation of human behavior work largely without being associated with conscious experience. This explains why people not always do what they say. In other words, the brain knows more than it admits to consciousness and since we have more and more access to that knowledge we should be interested in gaining it. The evidence grows that demonstrates how non-conscious processing occurs and influences our decision making.