Consciousness and intentionality in communication: A preliminary model and methodological approaches

Abstract

Independent of the definitional controversy over whether communication requires intentionality, it is appropriate and necessary to view the intentional and unintentional transmission of messages as separate and very different phenomena. Even in the case of intentionally transmitted messages, however, much or most of what constitutes communication occurs without consciousness. This presents a bleak prognosis for the investigation of communication processes, since nonconscious operations are difficult to observe. Based upon a borrowed model which suggests certain conditions under which unconscious processes may become conscious, several research methods for investigating the unconscious components of intentional communication are derived and exemplified.