1 Flashcards
Define consciousness
The subjective experience of the world and the mind
what two dimensions can consciousness be said to be composed of?
Wakefulness and Awareness.
What is skinner’s notion of free will?
we don’t have free will- pattern of neuron fire is controlled by experience and social conditioning.
what is phenomenology?
The study of experience
What is Qualia?
the subjective experiences we have as part of our mental life
e.g. unique experience of seeing the redness of red.
what is the Inverted spectrum problem?
everyone’s perceptions could theoretically be different we don’t know if ‘my’ red is the same as everyone else’s red. We only know our perceptions.
what did Chalmers devise? and what is this?
the philosophical zombie- someone who presents every indication that they are conscious e.g. responds to questions, carries out complicated reasoning and planning but lacks any mental qualia
e.g. computers can respond to q’s about experience but aren’t conscious.
what is materialism
the mind is what the brain does
the exclusively physical interpretation of mental life- mental states are products of physical systems alone.
what two dimensions seem to predict how much consciousness something/ someone has? and who developed this theory
experience (ability to feel pain, anger pleasure) and agency (self-control, planning)
Grey et. al
what is the mind body problem?
the issue of how the mind is related to the brain and body
what did Descartes propose?
the mind has effects on the brain and body through the pineal gland. Because it was a unitary structure compared to the rest of the brain which is split into the left and the right.
What is the mind-body problem?
how does something like the mind, which has no physical property, emerge from/ interact with the physical structures of the body?
what is the hard problem of consciousness?
it is a purely subjective phenomenon impervious to objective scientific understanding.
who believes the hard problem of consciousness will be solved and who believes that it won’t be?
chalmers- never solved
dennett- will be
what are the 3 characteristics of directed consciousness.
- unity
- selectivity
- transience
what is the unity of consciousness
our resistance to division- we can’t multitask
what did neisser and Becklen show?
unity of consciousness
- showed participants two simultaneous games superimposed on a TV screen
- Participants had to either count the points scored in one game, or in the other… or both simultaneously
- Their error rate was 8 times greater when tracking both games compared to just one
what is the selectivity of consciousness?
- the capacity to include some objects and not others
- only ever conscious of a fraction of what is around
- what may seem a rich and detailed experience may simply be an illusion
- various factors cause us to become conscious of stimuli.
what are examples of unity of consciousness?
- Dichotic listening
- Cocktail Party Phenomenon
- Inattentional Blindness
what did Simons and Chabris show?
Innatentional Blindness
Gorilla and basketall experiement
What is the Transcience of consciousness?
- content of conciousness is subject to change
- can be done with/ without volition
- our conscious experience of a stimulus may change dramatically even without actual change to the stimulus.
what are examples of transcience of consciousness?
- Binocular rivalry
- Bi-stable images
In both cases you can’t see the multiple images at the same time.
what did vogel, woodman and luck; Luck and Vogel do/ find
- assessed the capacity of visual STM (capacity of consciousness)
- initially examined how many items can be held in VSTM using the CHANGE DETECTION PARADIGM.
what is the homunculus problem?
difficulty of explaining the experience of consciousness by advocating another internal self
what is the problem of other minds?
the fundamental difficuty we have in percieving the consciousness of others
what is choice blindness
when people are unaware of their decision-making processes and justifying a choice as if it were already decided
what is change blindness?
when people are unaware of significant event changes that happen in full view
what is dichotic listening?
a task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages presented in each ear
what is the cocktail party phenomenon?
people tune into one message even while they filter out others nearby
what did cherry find regarding dichotic listening?
people were told to repeat messages from one ear
as a result of this people were very unobservant of the other ear- didn’t notice the laguage change
what does the consciouss filter out?
information including irrelevant messages
what did Moray find regarding dichotic listening?
that participants were more likely to notice if their own name is spoken into the unatended ear
what type of consciousness is selectivity a part of
waking consciousness
what did Oswald show about people’s sensitivity to their own name?
they are more sensitive to it even during sleep
what is minimal consciousness?
a low level of awareness that occurs when the mind inputs sensations and may output behaviour
something registers in your mind but you may not think at all about having had the experience
what is an example of minimal consciousness?
when someone pokes you in your sleep and you turn over
what is full consciousness
consciousness in which you know and are able to report your mental state
thinking about things but also thinking about the fact that you are thinking about things
when would a hurt leg me minimally and fully consciouss
rubbing it mindlessly= minimal
realising that the leg hurts= full
what does full consciousness do?
fluctuates
what did schooler et al. find about full cociousness?
when people are asked to report how often they zone out when reading they report this every few mins. Even then when an experimenter asks these people at random points in their reading at that moment, they are sometimes caught in the state of having zoned out without realising it
define self-consciousness
a distinct level of consciousness in which the persons attention s drawn to the self as an object
when do people report self-consciousness
- when embarassed
- focus of attention in a group
- camera on them
- deeply introspective about thoughts feelings or personal qualities
what does self-consciousness bring with it often
need to evaluate self and shortvcomings
what did Duval and Wicklund show about mirrors and self-consciousness
people are more likely to avoid mirrors when they have done something that they are ashamed of
what is the tendency to be chronically self-consciouss associated with?
depression
what did Gibbons show about mirror image and consciousness?
after seeing mirror image people are briefly more helpful, more cooperative and less aggressive
what did Beanman et al find about mirrors and hallowen
children were less likely to be greedy if there was a large mirror in the room
how many students cheated on a test when a mirror was in a room compared to no mirrror (Diener and Wallbom)
mirror= 7%
no mirror= 71%
how do psyhcologists test if an animal knows it is itself in a mirrror
THE ROUGE TEST
put red dye on anesthetised animal then presented with mirror and watch to see if the animal reaches towards spot of dye as it looked into the mirror- not the mirror image- would suggest recognized a refelection of its self
which animals recongise their own mirror image?
chimanzees, orangutangs, elephants
perhaps dolphins
which animals don’t recognise their own mirror image?
dogs, cats, birds, monkeys, gorillas
when can infants recognise their own mirror image
18 months
lewis and brooks-gunn
what is the experiencing sampling technique?
people are asked to report their conscious experiences at particular times. equipped with electronic beepers participants asked to record current thoughts when the beeper goes at random points through the day
what do experience sampling studies show?
consciousness is dominated by the immediate environment- what is seen, felt, heard, tasted and smelled are all at the forefront of the mind.
beyond this orientation to the environment turns to the persons current concerns or what the person is thinking about repeatedly (klinger)
what are problems with asking people to record self concerns?
they may not report accurately if they feel embarassed
what did Nikula et al. find regarding GSR- glavanic skin response
when distressed skin becomes moist
at random points GSR would rise spontaneously at these points the researchers asked the participants about their conscious thoughts- found that GSR rise corresponded with current concern popping into mind–> emotional bang
define daydreaming
a state of consciousness in which a seemingly purposeless flow of thoughts comes to mind
what do psychologists think the purpose of daydreaming is?
reflect the mind’s attempts to dial with difficult projects and problems
what does a computer program that simulates daydreams stipulate?
that humans learn from past experiences by replaying them in daydreams that they discover creative approaches to the future by imagining fanciful scenarios and that all this helps them to control and channel their emotions.
define mental control
the attempt to change conscious states of mind
what is thought supression
the conscious avoidance of a thought
what did wenger show with his white bear experiment
participants were asked not to try to think about something (a white bear)
they recorded all their thoughts aloud onto a tape recorder and asked to ring a bell if white bear came to mind for 5 mins
on average they mentioned the white bear/ rang the bell more than once every min
thought supression doesn’t work and instead produces a flurry of returns of unwanted thought
what did wenger find about the rebound effect of thought supression
when the task changed so that those who had been previously told to supress thoughts of a bear were told to actively think about it they thought about it a lot more than a group who hadn’t origionaly had to supress.
what is the rebound effect of thought supression
the tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression
what happens to those who are distracted while they are trying to get into a good mood?
tend to become sad (wenger)
what happens to those who are distracted while trying to relax?
become more anxious than those who aren’t trying to relax (wenger)
what is ironic processes of mental control?
mental processes than can produce ironic errors because monitoring for errors can itself produce them
is the ironic monitoring process present in consciousness?
no
what is freud’s dynamic unconscious?
an acitve system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the persons deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces
thoughts people keep secret from others and may not even acknowledge themselves
what is repression?
a mental process that removes thoughts and memories from the conscious and keeps them in the unconscious
without repression what would people do according to freud?
think do or say every unconscious impulse or urge no matter how selfish or immoral
what is a freudian slip
that there is meaning to errors and they are not random and they have surplus meaning and may have been created by an intelligent unconscious mind.
what did mootley and bars show about slips?
they can be prompted by pressing concerns
- one group were told they might receive mild electric shocks whereas another group had no mention of this
- then asked to read a list of pair words
- included shad bock
- those in warned group read it as bad shock
why had freud’s work been criticised?
sharpshooter fallacy/ post-hoc
he atttributes meaning post things happening rather than being to predict things and this is not a very scientific method.
what is the cognitive unconscious
the mental processes that are not experienced but the person but give rise to the person’s thoughts, choices, emotion and behavior.
what is subliminal perception
a thought or behavior that is influenced by stimuli that a person cannot consciously report
what is an example of the cognitive unconscious?
subliminal perception
what did Vicary claim about the cognitive unconscious?
that he could increase sales of popcorn and coke by flashing the words eat popcorn and drink coke on the screen
was vicary correct
no was a hoax
what is the degree of effect subliminal perception has on behavior?
very limited
what did strahan et al. show about subliminal percpetion and effect on behavior?
- volunteers performed a computer task and had to decide if letter strings were a word or not
- word flashed for 16ms prior to the letter string
- -1/2 subliminal word was thirst related and for 1/2 was unrelated
- after given a choice of coupons for super-quencher or power pro those who had been subliminally shown more often chose the super-quencher
according to Strahan et al. who did the subliminal message have an effect on?
only those who were thirsty prior to the experiement those who didn’t report being thirsty weren’t effected
what did Strahan et al. show about subliminal vs conscious messages?
ran same thirst test but showed words for longer so concsiously processed–> they found the same effect as with subliminal
is subliminal messaging stronger than conscious messaging?
no
what is Dijksterhuis’ general argument about the unconscious?
that it can be more effective than the conscious and that it is better to simply not think about some problems and let the unconscious do the work
What did Dijksterhuis’ experiment on the unconscious do and show?
participants given 3 flatmates who were described in 12 words. there was a good intermediate and bad flatmate
group one- given 4 mins to make a conscious decision
group two-immediate decision
group three- problem solving task for 4 mins and then decision so subconscious making decision
group three performed best at choosing good flatmate
what do Wilson and Schooler argue about the conscious?
sometimes can hinder us - takes too much concentration off the gut feeling and to idiosyncratic ideas.
this is why sometimes people feel best and most satisfied with just letting things happen
