Ezequiel Morsella
Department of Psychology
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue, Bldg. EP 301
San Francisco, California 94132-4168
U.S.A.
|
|
|
I received my doctoral training at Columbia University (1997-2002) and postdoctoral training at Yale University (2003-2007). Following my postdoctoral training, I was hired as an Assistant Professor of Social Cognitive Neuroscience at San Francisco State University (where I am director of the Action and Consciousness Laboratory) and as an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco.
My research integrates experimental approaches that are cognitive, affective, neurobiological, and social cognitive to illuminate the nature of the basic nonconscious and conscious (e.g., urges, impulse control, working memory) mechanisms in human action production. Specifically, to understand the nature of these mechanisms, I have investigated action production at different levels of analysis and in different contexts, including simple actions, subjective urges, speech production, social action, and language use (communication cognition). Thus, my approach is broadly based in terms of dependent measures: cognitive, affective, social, and neurobiological.
In trying to understand the nature of complex nonconscious processes, one eventually encounters the thorny question, "Then what is consciousness for?" I have developed a theoretical framework (Supramodular Interaction Theory [SIT] and the PRISM principle) explaining the primary function of conscious states (see below, Psychological Review, 2005). I had the honor and pleasure of presenting this framework in an invited talk to the Harvard Department of Psychology. As well, the theory was covered in the media by MSNBC and the BBC.
I was Born in Buenos Aires in 1974 and raised in the US since the age of six. I was interested in experimental psychology and what was then called psychobiology since my middle school days in Miami, when I came across books by Clark Hull and Donald Hebb. Later, I was mentored by Dr. Robert B. Tallarico at the University of Miami (B.A., 1996, Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude). I received my Ph.D. working with Dr. Robert M. Krauss at Columbia University. From fall 2003 till fall 2007, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow (NIH NRSA Award) at Yale University, working with Dr. John Bargh.
In collaboration with Dr. Krauss, I have investigated the role of hand- arm gestures in speech production; tip-of-the-tongue states; models of speech production; embodied cognition; speaker perception (the "vocal embodiment of speech"), and "The Motor Components of Semantic Representation" (my dissertation, supported by the Richard Christie Memorial Award, Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: the Sciences & Engineering, 63, 4B). This research on gestures and cognition has appeared on NBC's Dateline America, ABC's Good Morning America, and Globo TV.
I also collaborated with Dr. Michele Miozzo on projects concerning automatic processes in speech production, showing, for example, that the phonological representations of words can be activated even when those words are not selected for production (e.g., activating the /b/ phoneme by merely staring at a bell), an effect that has been replicated in the Spanish language and in several English variants of the paradigm.
The Function of Consciousness: Supramodular Interaction Theory
There is a consensus that conscious states integrate neural activities and information-processing that would otherwise be independent. However, it has remained unspecified which kinds of information are integrated in a conscious manner and which kinds can be integrated without consciousness. Not all kinds of integrative processes require conscious states (e.g., neural activity related to vegetative functions, reflexes, unconscious motor programs, low-level perceptual analyses, and intersensory interactions such as the ventriloquism effect).
SIT is unique in that it explains the primary role of consciousness by comparing the task demands of consciously-penetrable processes (e.g., pain and breathlessness) and consciously-impenetrable processes (e.g., the pupillary reflex). SIT proposes that these states are required to integrate high-level systems in the brain that are vying for (specifically) skeletomotor control, as described by the principle of parallel responses into skeletal muscle (PRISM). From this point of view, consciousness functions above the level of the traditional module to permit cross-talk among specialized, and often multi-modal, systems. For example, regarding a process such as digestion, one is conscious of only those phases of the process that require coordination with skeletal muscle plans (e.g., chewing).
In collaboration with Dr. John Bargh and Dr. Jeremy Gray, I am evaluating SIT using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. In addition, with the assistance of the neurologist Stephen Krieger, M.D., I am examining the implications that SIT has for disorders of awareness.
 Books:
- Morsella, E. (in press). Expressing oneself / expressing one's self: Communication, cognition, language, and identity. London: Taylor and Francis.
 Morsella, E., Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M. (Eds.). (in press). Oxford handbook of human action. New York: Oxford University Press.
Journal Articles:
- Bargh, J. A., & Morsella, E. (2008). The unconscious mind. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 73-79.
- Krauss, R. M., Freyberg, R., & Morsella, E. (2002). Inferring speaker's physical attributes from their voices. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 618-625.
- Levine, L. R., Morsella, E., & Bargh, J. A. (2007). The perversity of inanimate objects: Stimulus control by incidental musical notation. Social Cognition, 25, 267-283.
- Morsella, E. (2005). The function of phenomenal states: Supramodular interaction theory. Psychological Review, 112, 1000-1021.
- Morsella, E., & Bargh, J. A. (2007). Supracortical consciousness: Insights from temporal dynamics, processing-content, and olfaction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 100.
- Morsella, E., Gray, J. R., Krieger, S. C., & Bargh, J. A. (under review). The essence of conscious conflict: Subjective effects of sustaining incompatible intentions.
- Morsella, E., & Krauss, R. M. (2005). Muscular activity in the arm during lexical retrieval: Implications for gesture-speech theories. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 34, 415-427.
- Morsella, E., & Krauss, R. M. (2004). The role of gestures in spatial working memory and speech. American Journal of Psychology, 117, 411-424.
- Morsella, E., Krieger, S. C., Rizzo-Fontanesi, S., & Bargh, J. A. (2007). The primary function of consciousness in the nervous system. Annual Review of Biomedical Sciences, 9, 37-40.
- Morsella, E., & Miozzo, M. (2002). Evidence for a cascade model of lexical access in speech production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28, 555-563.
- Morsella, E., Wilson, L. E., Berger, C. C., Honhongva, M., Gazzaley, A., & Bargh, J. A. (under review). Subjective aspects of cognitive control at different stages of processing: Conscious conflict and Double-blindness.
Other Publications:
- Morsella, E. (in press). The mechanisms of human action: Introduction and background. In E. Morsella, J. A. Bargh, & P. M. Gollwitzer, Oxford handbook of human action. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Morsella, E., & Bargh, E. (in press). Unconscious mind. In W. E. Craighead & C. B. Nemeroff (Eds.), The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
|
| |