11. Consciousness Flashcards
Q: What is phenomenal consciousness?
A: Phenomenal consciousness refers to our subjective experiences and sensations, like the redness of a rose or the taste of chocolate. It’s about what it feels like to have these experiences.
Q: What is access consciousness?
A: Access consciousness involves the information in our minds that we can access and use for reasoning, decision-making, and guiding behavior. It’s the information we can think about and report to others.
Q: How do split-brain patients illustrate the distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness?
A: Split-brain patients can report objects presented in their right visual field but not in the left. However, they can draw or match objects seen in the left field, suggesting they have some level of phenomenal consciousness even if they cannot verbally report it.
Q: Why is the concept of ‘seeing’ in split-brain patients complex?
A: Split-brain patients may say they do not see objects in the left visual field due to the right hemisphere’s lack of language capability. However, their ability to draw or recognize these objects suggests a form of conscious experience.
Q: What is the global workspace theory of consciousness?
A: The global workspace theory posits that consciousness arises when information is made accessible to various parts of the brain, meaning only a small portion of sensory input reaches our conscious awareness.
Q: What does the inattentional blink experiment demonstrate about consciousness?
A: The inattentional blink experiment shows that when attention is diverted, even visible stimuli can become invisible, indicating that consciousness of an object depends on where attention is directed.
Q: What does Victor Lamme argue about the necessity of reporting for consciousness?
A: Victor Lamme argues that reporting is not necessary for consciousness. He believes that consciousness can exist even if it is not accessible due to constraints like attention, working memory, or brain injuries.
Q: How does binocular rivalry relate to consciousness studies?
A: Binocular rivalry studies show that when observers passively experience visual changes without reporting them, there is neural activity in occipital and parietal regions but not in frontal areas, suggesting different neural correlates for passive vs. active perception.
Q: What is inattentional blindness and its significance in consciousness studies?
A: Inattentional blindness occurs when we fail to notice visible objects due to diverted attention. Neuroimaging shows that unseen objects still activate visual areas, indicating that some level of processing occurs without conscious awareness.
Q: What is the difference between localized and widespread recurrent processing?
A: Localized recurrent processing remains confined to visual areas, whereas widespread recurrent processing spreads to prefrontal regions, allowing for conscious reportability.
Q: What is the ‘preconscious’ brain state proposed by Dehaene et al.?
A: The preconscious state is a neural process with potential for conscious access but is temporarily stored non-consciously due to a lack of top-down attentional amplification.
Q: How does conscious processing differ from preconscious processing?
A: Conscious processing involves activation spreading to the prefrontal cortex, maintaining information in working memory and guiding intentional actions, including verbal reports.
Q: Why does Victor Lamme advocate moving beyond introspection and behavioral measures for consciousness?
A: Lamme suggests including neuroscience data that bypass cognitive functions like attention and working memory, providing a more direct measure of consciousness.
Q: How does behaviorism view the existence of minds?
A: Behaviorism is skeptical about the existence of minds, focusing instead on observable behavior and translating “mind-talk” into behavioral terms for study.
Q: How does computationalism view the existence of minds?
A: Computationalism believes that minds exist and can be implemented in any computational system, implying that cognitive processes are akin to computations.
