Conation - Late 20th Century

Late 20th Century

In the late 20th century, studies of physiological aspects of brain functioning began to reinforce the time-honored three-faculty concept. The micro-genetic theory of action as constructed by Gary Goldberg, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Temple University School of Medicine, Moss Rehabilitation Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, for "The Behavioral and Brain Sciences" (1985), describes in detail the Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) and its role in the cortical organ of movement as viewed by neuroscientists. His research provides evidence that suggests SMA is the significant factor in the development of the intention to act and the specification and elaboration of action through its mediation between the medial limbic cortex and primary motor cortex.

Reviewing Goldberg's work, Jason W. Brown, Department of Neurology, New York University Medical Center, N.Y. (1985), stated:

"The clinical material demonstrates that frontal systems correspond with successive movements in action microgeny. We can infer that an action has a dynamic and hierarchic structure ... the internal context of the action is established through links with limbic cognition, a stage of symbolic and conceptual organization in which drive fractionates to partial affects. Space is volumetric; an external world is not yet present. There is incipient purposefulness attached to the action; it becomes goal directed as its object undergoes simultaneous differentiation."

That neuropsychologists have only recently taken a closer look at the crucial role the SMA plays in the volitional process might be seen, according to Antonio R. Damasio, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA, in his commentary "Understanding the Mind’s Will" (1985), "...as the fate of higher-order integrative systems."

Reitan and Wolfson have been studying brain injury patients through the lens of conation. In their paper "Conation:: A Neglected Aspect of Neuropsychological Functioning"(Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology Volume 15, Issue 5, July 2000, Pages 443-453) they explored through simple experiments, how conation was affected in injured people and the capacity of the medical system to recognise how these injuries affect conation. They proposed that if the conative capacity of a person was negatively impacted, then the capacity for a brain injured person to recover could be profoundly compromised, simply because they had less 'drive', or 'will' to recover and work through the often complex processes of recovery from brain injuries. They have been researching this area at depth since that time.

Piaget had referred to conation many years earlier as the mental domain most difficult to differentiate and thus he laid it aside as, until now, have the neuropsychologists. Piaget used his concept of disengagement to refer to the degree to which cognitive activity is independent of affective and conative relationships. But as Damasio points out, the "...anatomical and functional knowledge about the SMA and its vicinity will permit us to model the neuronal substrates of the will and thus overcome a persistent objection of those who favor a dualist position regarding mind and brain."

Stanford University's Richard E. Snow said,

"Historically, the concept of 'conation' was coordinated with cognition and affect, the three comprising the main domains of mental life. There has been recent interest in the interaction of cognition and affect ... But the conative seems to have dropped out of modern psychology's consciousness. It deserves reinstatement and research."

And Snow, in his editorial "Intelligence for the Year 2001" (1980), summed up the situation well when he said, "It is not unreasonable to hypothesize that both conative and affective aspects of persons and situations influence the details of cognitive processing ... A theoretical account of intelligent behavior in the real world requires a synthesis of cognition, conation and affect. We have not really begun to envision this synthesis" (p. 194 "Intelligence for the Year 2001").