First considerations about impressions

[Speakpigeon]

I'm interested at the moment in "impressions". As I understand it, impressions are like a running commentary on what's going on in the moment according to your perceptions of your environment, what you're doing and what you're thinking.

The major difference with emotions, as I see it, is that while emotions are few and stable, and relatively easily recognisable, in yourself and in others, there seem to be no limit to the number of impressions your brain can produce.

Another difference is that emotions have an obvious communication value, and therefore, presumably, an evolutionary value. I'm less clear what's the value of the impressions we have. You can't really communicate an impression you have to other people. You can make art about your impressions but that won't really communicate the impressions themselves. It seems also very nearly impossible to describe an impression. I guess an emotion affects you behaviour in some way, which makes it recognisable in each other, leading to a specific vocabulary, in all languages, across cultures. I see impressions as mute in terms of their effect on our behaviour. There is a list of emotions. There is even a list of six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. I couldn't find any list of impressions. I don't think there is one.

I'm not entirely sure we could even agree on what impressions are. What is it that the term "impression" is supposed to refer to? Possibly, many people don't even pay attention to the impressions they have, even though they probably have many impressions every day, possibly every minute! They have them, and they probably have some effect, but they're not aware of having them.

That's my first considerations for now.

Anybody else interested in that?

I know, it's a bit wacko and kerky, but there you are.
EB

Edit: And I only thought about doing this thread after lpetrich started his own on "Classification of Emotions.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The subject is quite difficult to address properly. It's probably a bit too subtle and private to go through the rational conversation treatment. Still, I'd like to try it.

So, what do I mean by "impression"?

Dictionaries don't really help. We have two groups of definitions that I see as relevant here:

impression
1.
> an effect produced in the mind by a stimulus; sensation: he gave the impression of wanting to help.
> an effect, feeling, or image retained as a consequence of experience: Seeing the glacier made a big impression on us.
> a strong effect produced on the intellect, feelings, or senses.
> an image in the mind caused by something external to it.
2.
> a vague notion, remembrance, or belief: I have the impression that we have met once before.
> a vague idea, consciousness, or belief: I had the impression we had met before.
> a somewhat vague awareness: a general impression of distant voices.

Effect? Well, sure, but that's a bit misleading. Perceptions provide a model for the notion of effect. We tend to see our perception of a tree as being the tree itself. We trust that the tree not only looks like what it looks to us, but somehow really is what we see. Which won't be true, but probably the point is that we're confident that other people will see the tree much in the same way as we do, which I would say it the basis for admitting of anything like having an objective idea of a tree. So we can take perception as very nearly an effect of our physical environment on our mind, or on our brain, even though it's clear now to us that the brain has to do quite a lot to effectively produce the representation of a tree we will have in our mind. So, the effect is really produced by the brain from a stimulus, and therefore not produced by a stimulus.

I would also dispute the relevance of "sensation", at least for what I am interested in here. Sensations are more readily associated with how a sense organ makes us feel. Typically, we have sensations of heat or cold, hunger, etc. So, to avoid the possible confusion, I prefer to drop the term "sensation".

Rather, I would restrict my discussion of impressions as non-voluntary and non-linguistic thoughts produced in the mind by the brain as a commentary on something else. Some impressions will be motivated by what we see or hear, others by a sensation we have, still others may be motivated by what we are thinking about or what we are doing. "Thoughts" here really mean short-lived. I'm concerned here with impressions that are not ideas, memories, perceptions etc.

We have a good example with the impression of déjà vu. You're looking at something, so there's already a visual perception, and the impression of déjà vu will come as an unprompted commentary on that. It's "non-linguistic" perhaps essentially because it's non-voluntary, but I won't get into the detailed mental mechanic of it because I don't know anything about that.

Another example would be the impression we may have that something being said "rings true". So, again, there's already something we're perceiving, i.e. something being said, and then we have this unprompted and non-verbal thought that what is being said is true. Obviously, we will tend to now believe that what has just been said is true. But the initial "rings true" impression is clearly something more short-lived and more basic. We may well in fact choose to disregard the initial impression to adopt a critical or sceptical attitude towards what has been said, and therefore keep a hold on our belief.

And, basically, I will avoid here talking of an impression if a different word seems more appropriate. For example, we may say that we have the impression that Trump is an idiot but it's probably more appropriate to say that we think he is an idiot. Thinking here is conceived of as voluntary (willed), and linguistic in that we have no difficulty verbalising the thought. And our thinking he is an idiot can be characterised as a belief, and just possibly a false one. I certainly wouldn't similarly talk of an impression of déjà vu as a belief.

So, I will take the following as presumptive impressions:

fancy, suspicion, hunch, apprehension, inkling, funny feeling

Not those, though:

idea, feeling, notion, sense, opinion, view, assessment, judgement, reaction, belief, concept, conviction

The case of "feeling" is borderline, but I think we usually think in terms of feeling for things that are well identified because they are a more regular occurrence in our lives. A feeling of shame, of ambivalence, nostalgia, etc. Déjà vu doesn't belong here because it is normally exceptional, or very unusual. If we recognise a place because we've been there before, we don't normally use "déjà vu". We use it when we seem to recognise not a place but a situation, which is not, presumably, literally possible.
EB

 

[Politesse]

Are impressions symbolically circumscribed?

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm not sure what you mean by "circumscribe" here. So, I will try to reply as to whether an impression may be symbolic.

There are several ways to take what "symbolic" means:

1. something that represents or stands for something else, usually by convention or association, esp a material object used to represent something abstract
2. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) an object, person, idea, etc, used in a literary work, film, etc, to stand for or suggest something else with which it is associated either explicitly or in some more subtle way
3. (Mathematics) a letter, figure, or sign used in mathematics, science, music, etc, to represent a quantity, phenomenon, operation, function, etc
4. (Psychoanalysis) the end product, in the form of an object or act, of a conflict in the unconscious between repression processes and the actions and thoughts being repressed: the symbols of dreams.
5. (Psychology) any mental process that represents some feature of external reality

I'll exclude the 1st to 4th definitions as somewhat irrelevant.

So, is an impression a "mental process that represents some feature of external reality"?

I don't have examples of that. In the case of déjà vu, the impression does not represent the situation or circumstances you are in. It's more like a comment about that, something like "hey, look, you've been through this before". It doesn't say anything about the situation in itself. Rather, at least in this case, it says something about you in relation to the situation.

In the case of something said that "rings true", you might want to say it represents the something said as true. But again, it seems to be more about you, as is a memory. That you remember some poem doesn't say anything about the poem. It says something about you.

EDIT: In these two cases, the impressions are also not specific the external element concerned, the situation you are in or what has been said. In both cases, the impression acts like a way to categorise your position relatively to the external element. So, impressions may be appreciations, or express an appreciation of your position.

So, I wouldn't take impressions to be symbolic of "some feature of external reality". But you can take them instead as symbolic of some internal reality. Indeed, the fact that impressions seem like a commentary suggests a symbolic value, even if it's not clear that we always understand what the impression means. And, obviously, like everything that goes through a human mind, it should be expected that impressions could become dysfunctional in this respect. I think it should be possible to have impressions that don't mean anything to you even though they could still appear to be meaningful.
EB

 

[Politesse]

Perhaps I should have said, are impressions necessarily symbolic? Do they exist absent symbolic reasoning and association of some kind?

 

[Speakpigeon]

I don't see any reasoning involved initially. Impressions seem to come through an entirely unconscious process. And that's the difficulty. You can't really assess the value of what the impression seems to say, if anything. They will act more as a way to attract your attention on something, which could then lead to a process of reasoning about this something.

I'm not sure all impressions are meaningful. If not, they're not necessarily symbolic. Or they may be necessarily symbolic, even when they are dysfunctional, but the meaning could remain elusive. They would seem to say something, just not something you could understand, somewhat like somebody talking to you in a foreign language, obviously meaningful, just not what you can understand.
EB

 

[ronburgundy]

In phenomenological terms, what does your concept of an "impression" refer to that is not fully entailed by the concept of having an emotional reaction and/or concept/idea of something?

 

[Speakpigeon]

In phenomenological terms, what does your concept of an "impression" refer to that is not fully entailed by the concept of having an emotional reaction and/or concept/idea of something?

First, "emotional reaction" may suggest observable behaviour. I will limit myself to what would be going on inside the mind.

I would assume that people are able to make the distinction between the different types of mental activities occurring within their own mind. However, it may be complicated because impressions and ideas may come associated with emotions; emotions may lead to ideas and impressions; impressions if noticed should lead to ideas, and ideas may well prompt emotions. Etc. So, I suspect we have to learn to make the proper distinctions and this may take time and effectively a substantial part of your life.

Still, emotions have a subjective quality to them, perhaps essentially in terms of their typical effect on our behaviour, such as for example shading tears and laughing, as well as more subtle manifestations, and in terms of the physical sensations associated in a specific way to emotions (laughing, crying). The process of entertaining ideas, i.e. thinking, is usually felt as being willed. Even if that's not entirely true, I still think it's broadly true. Ideas are also essentially "abstract", and emotionally neutral. Impressions seem to come from outside the rational mind, so to speak, which is why I say they are like a live commentary on what's going on in our lives. Our ideas are our own commentary, coming from inside the rational mind. Emotions seem to come from the body. That's not entirely true but there's something to that. Whereas impressions seem to come from the mind itself, if from some non-conscious part.

I also suspect that impressions, while usually very discrete, are more or less occurring all the time, giving our subjective experience of life it's everyday quality. They seem like an integral part of that experience, giving it qualitative texture, unlike our ideas. And emotions are thought of as normally more exceptional. And if not, we think it would be because of some real problem.

An impression of déjà vu is presumably something like a non-conscious part of your mind somehow making this assessment and informing your conscious mind. Becoming conscious of that information may cause some emotion or lead to forming an idea but it will remain distinct from these things.
EB

 

[ronburgundy]

In phenomenological terms, what does your concept of an "impression" refer to that is not fully entailed by the concept of having an emotional reaction and/or concept/idea of something?

First, "emotional reaction" may suggest observable behaviour. I will limit myself to what would be going on inside the mind.

I would assume that people are able to make the distinction between the different types of mental activities occurring within their own mind. However, it may be complicated because impressions and ideas may come associated with emotions; emotions may lead to ideas and impressions; impressions if noticed should lead to ideas, and ideas may well prompt emotions. Etc. So, I suspect we have to learn to make the proper distinctions and this may take time and effectively a substantial part of your life.

Still, emotions have a subjective quality to them, perhaps essentially in terms of their typical effect on our behaviour, such as for example shading tears and laughing, as well as more subtle manifestations, and in terms of the physical sensations associated in a specific way to emotions (laughing, crying). The process of entertaining ideas, i.e. thinking, is usually felt as being willed. Even if that's not entirely true, I still think it's broadly true. Ideas are also essentially "abstract", and emotionally neutral. Impressions seem to come from outside the rational mind, so to speak, which is why I say they are like a live commentary on what's going on in our lives. Our ideas are our own commentary, coming from inside the rational mind. Emotions seem to come from the body. That's not entirely true but there's something to that. Whereas impressions seem to come from the mind itself, if from some non-conscious part.

I also suspect that impressions, while usually very discrete, are more or less occurring all the time, giving our subjective experience of life it's everyday quality. They seem like an integral part of that experience, giving it qualitative texture, unlike our ideas. And emotions are thought of as normally more exceptional. And if not, we think it would be because of some real problem.

An impression of déjà vu is presumably something like a non-conscious part of your mind somehow making this assessment and informing your conscious mind. Becoming conscious of that information may cause some emotion or lead to forming an idea but it will remain distinct from these things.
EB

It might help for you to give a specific example of the three concepts in relation to a specific event, let's say "seeing a cat".
The light from the cat hits my retina and sends signals to my brain, which triggers an mental experience of the cat's visual properties. This in turn triggers learned associations with cats that entail emotions (pleasant feelings cause cats are cute, or fear due to being scratched in the past), and ideas about cats, predictions of what this cat might do, etc..
Many of these ideas are triggered automatically due to highly learned associations. Other ideas I might arrive at via reasoning about the information coming in about this cat and more general knowledge I have (Such as, this cat has no color and looks malnurished, therefore it is probably feral or has been lost for some time).
What of these things are "impressions" that cannot be adequately described as some combination of emotion and ideas?

BTW, some of your comments convey the idea that our emotions cause physiological reactions, like smiles tears and laughter.
You should look into some of the neuroscience on emotions which suggests a reverse causality, namely that what we experience as emotion is subjective manifestation of our objective bodily states. IOW, the feeling of "sadness" is in fact a bodily sensation, where our bodies react to the stimuli first at a pre-conscious level, and then we feel our own body in that state and that feeling is emotion.
This is a a good Starter book on it, and just generally a pleasant read with some fun stuff about Spinoza.

 

[Speakpigeon]

It might help for you to give a specific example of the three concepts in relation to a specific event, let's say "seeing a cat".
The light from the cat hits my retina and sends signals to my brain, which triggers an mental experience of the cat's visual properties. This in turn triggers learned associations with cats that entail emotions (pleasant feelings cause cats are cute, or fear due to being scratched in the past), and ideas about cats, predictions of what this cat might do, etc..
Many of these ideas are triggered automatically due to highly learned associations. Other ideas I might arrive at via reasoning about the information coming in about this cat and more general knowledge I have (Such as, this cat has no color and looks malnurished, therefore it is probably feral or has been lost for some time).
What of these things are "impressions" that cannot be adequately described as some combination of emotion and ideas?

It seems clear to me that most of what we come to think, or what we come to have in mind, normally, doesn't come through emotion or reasoning, except when we're engaged in some specific activity, such as making love for emotions and doing some intellectual activity for reasoning. You may or may not get to have some emotion about a cat you see in the street. You may or may not get to reason about something in relation to this cat. In the way you just explained. What you can't fail to get in your mind most of the time are at least a few impressions about this cat. Again, they will be pretty inconspicuous but you will have them.

For example, the impression that the cat is a real cat. That it is not a cat you are familiar with. That it's a mean cat. Possibly that it's your cat, even if it was not. That it's a kind of cat you've never seen before. Many of the ideas you could arrive at through careful observation and reasoning may come to you as impressions, this time with only a casual look at the thing and no proper reasoning. And impressions may also be about what you are thinking or about an emotion you have.

BTW, some of your comments convey the idea that our emotions cause physiological reactions, like smiles tears and laughter.

Just my wrong wording then. I'm fully convinced that whatever thoughts come to, or go through, my mind are the result of my body doing things, except for the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness where I remain open to any suggestions.

As I said, I was speaking as through a purely subjective perspective. I know too little about what's going on in the body to go there.
EB

 

[ronburgundy]

It might help for you to give a specific example of the three concepts in relation to a specific event, let's say "seeing a cat".
The light from the cat hits my retina and sends signals to my brain, which triggers an mental experience of the cat's visual properties. This in turn triggers learned associations with cats that entail emotions (pleasant feelings cause cats are cute, or fear due to being scratched in the past), and ideas about cats, predictions of what this cat might do, etc..
Many of these ideas are triggered automatically due to highly learned associations. Other ideas I might arrive at via reasoning about the information coming in about this cat and more general knowledge I have (Such as, this cat has no color and looks malnurished, therefore it is probably feral or has been lost for some time).
What of these things are "impressions" that cannot be adequately described as some combination of emotion and ideas?

It seems clear to me that most of what we come to think, or what we come to have in mind, normally, doesn't come through emotion or reasoning, except when we're engaged in some specific activity, such as making love for emotions and doing some intellectual activity for reasoning. You may or may not get to have some emotion about a cat you see in the street. You may or may not get to reason about something in relation to this cat. In the way you just explained. What you can't fail to get in your mind most of the time are at least a few impressions about this cat. Again, they will be pretty inconspicuous but you will have them.

For example, the impression that the cat is a real cat. That it is not a cat you are familiar with. That it's a mean cat. Possibly that it's your cat, even if it was not. That it's a kind of cat you've never seen before. Many of the ideas you could arrive at through careful observation and reasoning may come to you as impressions, this time with only a casual look at the thing and no proper reasoning. And impressions may also be about what you are thinking or about an emotion you have.

Okay, so basically, your using "impression" like many cognitive scientist would use "concept", which can vary in how much they are shaped by uncontrolled associative processes versus conscious deliberation. I would be cautious about making a clear distinction about those concept or "impressions" that do or do not entail any "reasoning" or "emotions" though. I'm not sure the thought of "that is a real cat" occurs without some reasoning which includes factoring in contextual information such as "I'm not on drugs or sleeping".
Also, emotional reactions can precede any conscious thought about a thing, and a sense of familiarity may actually be rooted in a low level emotional response that we interpret as being a "a sense of familiarity".

Some cognitive scientists refer to what you are calling "impressions" as ideas that result for "system 1" processes, which are automatic, fast, and rooted in the strength of neural associations created from how elements of a situation have co-occurred in past experience.

Viewed this way, it seems obvious what the evolutionary utility would be of the brain forming rapid "impressions" of everything we encounter. These are what most animals that don't have our reasoning ability use to react to their environment. Also, immediate impressions are the grist on which the mill of our reasoning operates.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Okay, so basically, your using "impression" like many cognitive scientist would use "concept"

Yes, scientists are not usually renown for being particularly terminologically savvy. Concepts are normally understood as very general and abstract ideas about things. The impression that the neighbourhood you're going through is unknown to you isn't an abstract idea. It's... Well, it's an impression. And I am using the term "impression" because I believe it's the term most people would use.

Still, scientists are free to invent their own lingo, even if it's not necessarily the best way to communicate with people having neurological conditions.

Okay, so basically, your using "impression" like many cognitive scientist would use "concept", which can vary in how much they are shaped by uncontrolled associative processes versus conscious deliberation. I would be cautious about making a clear distinction about those concept or "impressions" that do or do not entail any "reasoning" or "emotions" though.

What strikes me about impression v. reasoning is that you stop having impressions when you're deep into intellectual activity. Which does make a lot of sense. We don't want stupid impression processes to interfere with the intelligent ones of reasoning.

Emotions seem also to stop during intellectual activity but I suspect it would have more to do with the relative paucity of sensory inputs in that situation.

I'm not sure the thought of "that is a real cat" occurs without some reasoning which includes factoring in contextual information such as "I'm not on drugs or sleeping".

Me, I'm quite sure.

I didn't say "the thought of 'that is a real cat'", but the impression that the cat is a real cat, i..e. without quotes, quotes suggesting to me a verbalised thought and therefore a reasoning. So, yes, it is just an impression, not even something you're going to be aware of. It's just part of your mental state at the time, an inconspicuous part of the broad picture you'll have on the moment, to be almost immediately replaced by another broad picture, or indeed an emotion or a reasoning.

Also, emotional reactions can precede any conscious thought about a thing, and a sense of familiarity may actually be rooted in a low level emotional response that we interpret as being a "a sense of familiarity".

I'm open to the idea of a close proximity between emotion and impression processes. As you describe them, and as I indeed also described them, I expect these would have come first in our evolution and before our reasoning processes. However, I think there's a clear distinction between emotions and impressions and I would still expect distinct neurological systems to be involved in producing them.

Never mind, I can wait for science to catch up.

Some cognitive scientists refer to what you are calling "impressions" as ideas that result for "system 1" processes, which are automatic, fast, and rooted in the strength of neural associations created from how elements of a situation have co-occurred in past experience.

Yes, that fits the bill exactly!

Except for the term "ideas", though. Tell me if I could do anything about that.

Viewed this way, it seems obvious what the evolutionary utility would be of the brain forming rapid "impressions" of everything we encounter. These are what most animals that don't have our reasoning ability use to react to their environment. Also, immediate impressions are the grist on which the mill of our reasoning operates.

Yes, I admit I hadn't thought of that when doing my OP. Pretty obvious, though, yes. I guess I reflected about the distinction between emotion and impression, and less about the distinction between impression and reflection, the latter definitely taking more time, possibly even much more time. So, thanks.
EB

Edit: I would also make the distinction that impressions seem to be produced from an analysis of potentially all our sensory inputs while emotions seem much more specialised, already focalising on specific, pre-identified signals coming, almost expected, from the environment.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm also open to the possibility that emotions would somehow be a particular kind of impressions. Certainly, emotions are subjectively experienced as at least partially similar to impressions. Still, I suspect that it's more a case of these two processes concluding with somewhat similar events within the conscious mind and yet without being produced by the same neurobiological systems.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

So what seems to being said here are that received physical information, in living things capable of forming communicable representation, input at some point leads to a sense of something being in that representation. We are instructed by our understanding of how nervous systems work that input information is processed so as to provide limiting bounds to input forming containers or precepts when considered by analytic brain processes.

For the sake of this discussion I'm going to suggest that first impressions are the sense of those containers first perceived. As such it isn't necessary that what is perceived be conscious since we, as such beings, act on such identifications without being aware they exist. So an impression would be at first instance, unconscious precept.

I suspect some want other than scientific explanation. I don't see how other explanation is possible.

Because emotive behavior is not necessarily perceived from outside information I'm not willing to lump emotive impressions with first precepts.

 

[Speakpigeon]

First, there's a clear distinction between emotion and impression.

Here are the relevant definitions, at least for us ordinary mortals who just insist on speaking proper English rather than some kind of Volapük:

emotion
n any strong feeling, as of joy, sorrow, or fear

impression
n
1. an effect produced in the mind by a stimulus; sensation: he gave the impression of wanting to help.
3. a vague idea, consciousness, or belief: I had the impression we had met before.

Those are good enough for me to insist on distinguishing the two. Emotions are somehow strong and only occur occasionally. Each type of emotion is typical of the circumstances. If you blush, you'll know why.

Impressions occur pretty much all the time, except when you're busy thinking. And they're comparatively unobtrusive and inconspicuous compared to emotions. They're obviously not there to stop you doing something. There's there to inform you, except there's no sense organ per se. Rather, they seem to work their magic out of the whole package of your perceptions. So, it seems to be a second-level system working out interpretations of your current situation out of your perceptions. That you have the impression you've met this guy before doesn't change whatever picture you are perceiving with this guy in it. Same picture but in one case you'll have the impression and not in the other.

I also say that impressions are like a running commentary on what's going on in our lives because that's what they feel like. You meet somebody you don't recognise. It's just one guy. Yet, you can still say, "I had the impression we had met before". Or, "he gave the impression of wanting to help". Impressions don't look, or feel, like perceptions. There's nothing in what you're looking at you could point out as the "impression", or what the impression would be referring to, which is usually something you can do if you're are looking at a bird perched on a branch.

Also, there seems to be a limited range of possible emotions. There is even a list of six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Whereas impressions seem to be as many as the stars by a clear night sky.

I suspect that most people only pay attention to the impressions they probably have up until their teenage years. They sort of discover themselves, so to speak. And then they get busy with one thing and another and forget to pay attention. Impressions are comparatively unobtrusive and inconspicuous. It's easy to not pay attention. But they're there. And they tell you all sorts of things on what's going on. They're like cues (hints, suggestions). This guy is a dumbass. There's something strange in here. Maybe it's not safe to do that. I seem to be forgetting something. And so on all day long and it can't possibly not affect what you eventually do in your life. It's unobtrusive and inconspicuous. You think you know what you're doing and why. Well, not if you don't pay attention to the impressions you have. You're having a walk. At some point you can choose between left and right. You go left. You think there's no reason for that? Well, think again.

And that's what is happening to you all along your life, every minute of it. Except when you busy thinking. And therefore pretty much doing nothing that could be nudged this or that way.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

We talk of "hallucinations".

(Psychology) the alleged perception of an object when no object is present, occurring under hypnosis, in some mental disorders, etc.

Perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory stimuli in the absence of any external objects or events and with a compelling sense of their reality

So, hallucinations all relate to perception. It's either a perception somehow transmogrified by a mental disorder into something unrecognisable but nonetheless with "a compelling sense of their reality". Or something caused by a mental disorder, and feeling essentially like a perception, even though in this case there's nothing perceived.

That's for hallucinations. So, what is the equivalent for impressions? Impressions are not perceptions, so the notion of hallucinations doesn't apply to impressions. Still, we should expect that our ordinary impressions would be affected by various mental disorders but without appearing to the subject as hallucination. They would still appear as impressions, but presumably very bizarre impressions, impressions that would make no sense whatsoever, just like hallucinations very often make no sense at all, beyond feeling like a perception. And since in a normal situation impressions come fast one after another pretty much all day long except when you're concentrating on something, we should expect that mental disorders affecting impressions would produce transmogrified impressions coming one after another all day except when the subject would be concentrating on something, if at all possible given the particular mental disorder.

Only this time, we should expect that these transmogrified impressions should be much more conspicuous for being transmogrified. Not necessarily more intense than ordinary impressions, just more noticeable. In fact, you wouldn't be able to ignore them. All day long.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Somehow this thread is beginning to read like notes from of a group of people sitting around a coffee table with a bunch of coffee table books. My subjects, back in the day, told me they had impressions there was/was not something present in the interval prescribed for possible signal presentation in my threshold experiments. That doesn't sound anything like whatever it is being discussed here.

Scientists modeled these things in the late forties and early fifties, before I even ran experiments. In fact this is a major topic of discussion around the notion of an ideal observer.

So, in addition to my coffee table analogy, I'd like to submit a repainting analogy as well.

I'm trying to generate an impression here.

 

[Speakpigeon]

In the ordinary sense of the word "impression" I'm using here (see dictionary definitions in the OP), there's a clear distinction between impressions and perceptions. Personally, I don't seem to have any difficulty in making this distinction, for each and every impression or perception I have, and I have a lot of them day in, day out. Same as for impressions and emotions. Obviously, all these mental events must have things in common, but I'm interested here in what's accessible to us as subjects, through our subjective experience. I would have thought that should be the starting point for any good science of the mind, but maybe I'm just too ignorant or confused as to what's really going on around here.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Maybe a critical example could help.

Suppose you're having a leisurely walk around some unfamiliar neighbourhood. At one point, you get to a simple crossroad. There are three possibilities for you to continue your walk (excluding the road you had come from). You have the time and the motivation to continue. But which way? There's no particular reason you should opt for any one road in particular. Yet, just looking at each road from where you are, one of them just seems more interesting. I assume most people would go this way in the circumstances but maybe not if there was something else to take into account at the time.

There's no verbalisation at the time. There's no apparent emotional implication (no hurry, no threat, etc.). You're not even necessarily too aware of this thought. I guess there's a minimal threshold it has to cross for it to be effective but it can be really minimal. Say, you forget about it within one second or two.

So: What generic single term or expression should we use, do you think, to refer to this particular mental event that this one road seems more interesting than the other ones?

Justifications would be appreciated but are not necessary.

And please take your time to think about it.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

And I'd really like to know what's the use of our impressions.

For all I know, they seem to have a major role in whatever we choose to do and we may have anywhere between a few hundred to thousands of them just in one ordinary day of our lives.

Basically, they feel like fairly inconspicuous but suggestive comments addressed by some unconscious part of the brain to our consciousness, apparently to nudge us into doing something rather than something else. I can't quite figure out how else to explain the use of them. Any idea anyone?
EB