Hey, all, I've been thinking a lot about cognitive science and what psychedelics have taught me about my own perception of reality, and I've wandered down some pretty interesting paths, specifically this one. I feel like it could go in several different subforums (Science, Through The Looking Glass, Philosophy et), so I'll just leave it here and hope people find it interesting.

I've been thinking about this idea of 'salience,' defined here as:
"The quality of being relevant to the individual processing the information."

This isn't a very helpful definition so here are two examples:
1) If you've ever been in a room with something you're afraid of, you'll remember how the object of your anxiety becomes extremely "important:" forcing you to focus on it and taking up more mental space then other things. This is a negative salience: fear.
2) Another example is if you've ever had class with someone you were physically attracted to, even if you're trying not stare, you find them "interesting" or "tempting" to watch, and even if you're actively trying not to stare, you're investing mental effort into your relationship to them.

If you force yourself to think just about the character of both experiences (ignore the fear and arousal specifically), you'll notice that they're very similar: both stimuli become very hard NOT to think about, look at, or otherwise consider, and thoughts and desires relating to them can be intrusive and hard to control because they are so "relevant." Some might even say they are both "more real," or at least, "more relevant."

Both the scary object and the attractive person would have high levels of salience: they are highly relevant to you on cognitive level and consequently take up a lot of mental space.

For most people (the neurotypical among us), everything in the world has consistent and varying levels of salience, and these different levels of relevancy are how we integrate our perception of reality: by deciding what is important and deserving of our limited mental resources and what is familiar, unimportant, or boring, we make a world that is understandable and navigable.

When people talk about things seeming "more real," (think back to your last psychedelic trip), it may be that things that are salient take up more mental space or are processed with more intensity, causing them to be more highly detailed or "real." Some people refer to this as the HD Vision associated with tripping or being excessively high on cannabis. People having religious experience, psychotic breaks, or tripping on psychedelic drugs all speak of their environments somehow becoming "more real."

Looking for a neurological basis for salience is interesting: dopamine has been implicated in the super-salience of schizophrenics (I'll get to that in a moment), which makes sense. Dopamine, in addition to being the basis for reward and learning may be involved in the processing of information related to salience (making reward-generating stimulus take up mental space): it's certainly not hard to see how the object of sexual desire (which is modulated, in part by dopamine) is made extra-salient through the action of this neurotransmitter.
Serotonin acts as a neuromodulator, and can be tampered with to reduce or produce many mental disorders, both through it's own direct actions on the brain, and it's ability to modulate the release of dopamine.

I posit that more then a few mental disorders are caused by aberrations in our brains perception of salience. There is already evidence that schizophrenics live in a hyper-salient world, where everything is extremely important, and this makes it difficult for them to integrate a coherent picture of reality because everything is so highly salient. Finding deep meaning in seemingly random things might account for the delusions associated with schizotypal disorders, as well as the feelings of "overwhelmed," and "adrift," that schizophrenics complain of.

Depression may be another disorder of salience, however in the opposite direction: things seem irrelevant or unimportant because the entire world is just less salient. People with depression often report feelings that things "don't matter" or "aren't important." In a world where nothing was salient, it would be hard to get worked up about anything.

Anxiety too could be a disorder of salience, only where one particular stimulus becomes salient to the point that it overwhelms the rest of the brains ability to process the relative salience of other parts of the perceived world. OCD as well can be described as a disorder of salience, where trivial things take on tremendous salience (eg: taking an odd number of steps becomes hugely important).

It's very hard to describe the qualia associated with salience beyond vagueness like "how real" or "how important" something feels, and it may be this ineffable quality to salience that makes communicating the subjective experience of altered or aberrant states of consciousness so difficult.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. On one level, I find it extremely interesting, but on another level, I feel like some of the magic has been taken out of psychedlics, by reducing their effects to a specific cognitive effect (altered perception of salience).

Thoughts?
~ND

I think with depression it can depend. I think the issues that have caused one to be depressed are overwhelming and take up most of the mental space. Although thus is situation dependent. I have a friend who is constantly down on himself because nothing seems to go right for him.

Most of his thought process is taken up with thoughts of yearning for financial wealth and having a gf. Thinking that those things will bring him happiness, but every step he takes messes something up or ends up hindering him further. Losing a job or constantly being broke, girls he shows interest in aren't interested in return ect.

This salience is a new concept to me so I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I think psychedelics have increased my salience towards self improvement. Am I using the word in the correct context?

I suppose I should have defined depression a little more closely: in this case, I'm referring to the chronic, intractable depression that tends to be resistant to talk therapy or changes in life situation, and that seems to come from nowhere, instead of some particular event-specific trauma.

And I don't think you're using salience in the same context that I am. Salience is a characteristic that specific internal or external stimuli have (the quality of being "important" or directly relevant to your well-being).

Semantically, you don't have salience towards something, things just are salient (or not). Are you saying that psychedelics have increased the salience of self improvement: making the idea of bettering your self more important or personally relevant?

Blessings
~ND

This salience talk is making sense to me.


There have been a few times in my life where I experienced a month or so of heightened awareness. I'll be continuously inspired, more charismatic than normal, require less sleep, have seemingly in-exhaustible energy. I can get a bit overwhelmed during these times..... hyper-salience seems a good term. I think it's always triggered by external stimuli, but i still have not figured out how to trigger it intentionally. It is rather enjoyable, and only slightly dangerous i'm in my thirties now, and last time it happened, I pretty much had it within safe bounds, didn't freak anyone out too bad.

things are definitely more meaningful to me, in such a state. minor events transpire and my mind is just blown--wow, this thing here, connects to that thing from whenever, and now it's just full circle and--you know, greater signifigance, amazing synchronicities.

Beyond that, I can scarcely comment. At this moment, salience seems to me like it could possibly be a link between schizoid states, psychedelic states, and whatever it is that happens to me once every 5 years or so.

WOAH
what a beautiful interpretation of salience, I felt I was gonna be lost when I read the official description but you explained yourself quite clearly.
Great topic ND
do you see yourself, or the human race really ever able to change the salience of situations voluntarily?
Awareness is always the first step though, thanks for this.

I'm unsure if you could voluntarily change the salience of objects in your environment. I think it depends on how you defined "voluntarily changing salience."

Using psychedelics or meditation, I think you could definitely induce changes in your brains perception of salience, however, I'm not sure it's something you could train yourself to do as an automatic and voluntary thing.
I really have no idea though. There are a lot of people who are a lot cleverer then me who figured out things I would have considered impossible.

Doodazzle: forgive my asking, but are by any chance bipolar, or do you come from a family with a history of bipolar disorder? That sounds to me a lot like the manic phases I see in my bipolar uncle. Increased energy, less need to eat and sleep, as well as feelings of confidence are all pretty classic symptoms of an episode of mania.
A good indicator would be if these episodes were followed by periods of feeling depressed or low.

Blessings
~ND

No need to appologize, it's cool.

No-one in my family has ever been diagnosed bi-polar. I myself have often called these heightened states of mine "manic". No corresponding depressive phase really ever happens though.

The "natural high" is not really followed by a low.

To call me "bi-polar disorder" when I only ever experience the positive aspect, and almost nothing but positive stuff happens during these phases. heck, they are the best enjoyed and mostly fondly remembered parts of my life....hard to call it "disorder", if it's so glowing.


There is schizophrenia in my family, however. And I never once called myself normal.

Hmm, that's very interesting, I have to say I'm a little envious.

There is great overlap between the genes that predispose one for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, so that might have something to do with it.

If it makes you happy, that's awesome: more power to you. Have you ever spoken to a doctor of neurologist about it?

Blessings
~ND

Interesting topic ND!

The topic of Salience and how it effects our integration of information makes sense to me. With so much information at our disposal the inability to properly process this makes a lot of sense in regards to the disorders you mentioned.

As far as psychedelics, it would seem to me, by expanding our perceptual and cognitive resources, they make available more sensory data to which we can become more salient (or not) toward. Instead of augmenting what we find salient, they create new possibilities of salience otherwise not available.

If this is so, expanding these resources, to me, is the magic.

Thanks for sharing.


S

I was thoroughly checked out by all sorts of shrinks and specialists, as a teen. they ultimately found me "normal". Ha!

My "manic episodes" all occurred in the years after that. Well, too much tumult within the teen years--no way to discern it, if it ever did happen, from the rest of the teen excitement.

I've been considering your suggestion all week. I can see no reason why I would want to go back and see a doctors or neurologists about this. It's barely even describable. Hey doc, once every few years or so I have the best 3 months of my life. Fix it?

I would never suggest that you fix it or try and make it go away if it makes you that happy, but it would be nice to have some record of your experience in the literature.