Author(s)

Zhiyin Shan

Doublegalaxy Technologies, Tustin, California, USA.

This paper proposes a hypothesis about automatic nerve signal transmission and conscious primacy. If stimulated suddenly, people are initially unaware of the stimulation. Without conscious guidance, nerve signals are automatically transmitted via the strongest neural connections, thereby producing fast and involuntary behavior. Upon awareness of the stimulation, conscious primacy plays a role, and nerve signals are transmitted in consciously guided directions, thereby generating cognition and voluntary behaviors. When we repeat an action in a special environment, it will become a habit. This is because when nerve signals are repeatedly transmitted to action cells in a specific environment, neural connections between the specific environment and the action are strengthened. Upon return to this specific environment, nerve signals will be automatically transmitted, producing a stereotyped habit behavior without conscious thought. Facial expression, for example, is controlled by both emotion and cognition. Prior to emotional awareness of sudden stimulation, nerve signals are automatically transmitted, producing microexpressions consistent with emotion. Upon awareness, control switches from emotion to cognition, producing flexible facial expressions consistent with consciousness. The automatic nerve signal transmission and conscious primacy hypothesis suggests a new mechanism for producing different behaviors, reveals the essential difference and mutual transformation of stereotyped and flexible behaviors, and opens a new field for ethological study.

Behavior, Neural Connection, Consciousness, Unconsciousness, Synapse

Shan, Z. (2017) The Automatic Nerve Signal Transmission and Conscious Primacy Hypothesis. Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 7, 165-179. doi: 10.4236/jbbs.2017.74014.