The Emotional Unconscious

One of the earliest marks of the cognitive revolution in psychology was a revival of interest in consciousness, as opposed to behavior. To a large degree, the cognitive psychology which emerged immediately after World War II to replace functional behaviorism was marked by an interest in the span of apprehension, primary memory, attention, and imagery. Now, as we approach the 21st century, cognitive psychology has begun to deal seriously with unconscious mental life, and the notion of the psychological unconscious: the idea that conscious experience, thought, and action is influenced by percepts, memories, and other mental states which are inaccessible to phenomenal awareness and somehow independent of voluntary control.