Distributed intentionality: A model of intentional behavior in humans

Is human behavior, and more specifically linguistic behavior, intentional? Some scholars have proposed that action is driven in a top-down manner by one single intention—i.e., one single conscious goal. Others have argued that actions are mostly non-intentional, insofar as often the single goal driving an action is not consciously represented. We intend to claim that both alternatives are unsatisfactory; more specifically, we claim that actions are intentional, but intentionality is distributed across complex goal-directed representations of action, rather than concentrated in single intentions driving action in a top-down manner. These complex representations encompass a multiplicity of goals, together with other components which are not goals themselves, and are the result of a largely automatic dynamic of activation; such an automatic processing, however, does not preclude the involvement of conscious attention, shifting from one component to the other of the overall goal-directed representation.