14 The Neural Basis of Consciousness Flashcards
What are the three important aspects of consciousness?
- Sentience (being able to experience something)
- Self-knowledge (knowing that you live in this world)
- Access to information (ability to report on what my brain is doing)
What did the New Caledonian Crow look at?
Using behaviour to assess intelligence
What is the rescue behaviour of trapped ants?
Example in ants: take one ant and bind it with a strap then you cover it with sand and Peebles. Generally what happens is you have a number of animals come around it and try rescue it
Issues with using behaviour to assess intelligence?
- Could be learned through trial and error
- could have been shaped up through previous experience
- are part of a hard-wired repertoire of behaviours
Example of the goose who thinks everything is its egg.
The mirror self-recognition test is a test of self-recognition in babies and elephants. Does it need self awareness?
Elephants can recognize what they are looking at in a mirror. If the animal wipes away the mark on itself they are demonstrating the animal is aware the animal is on itself. This demonstrates self-recognition
Can consciousness be explored by examining Memory and Behaviour? (Rhesus monkey experiment)
If you have a short delay more likely animal will take the test over giving it a long delay and knowing its memory is bad.
When monkeys remember the stimulus they will go to the test phase for the peanut, over a long delay they know they forget, therefore they just take the pallet.
Monkeys are more accurate when choosing to do the task over being forced
Accuracy declines the longer the delay is
Is there a Neuronal Correlate of consciousness? (NCC)
It is probable that at any moment some active neuronal processes in our head correlates with consciousness, while others do not.
Idea: when you are conscious there has to be something different in your brain to not being conscious
Some brain areas are involved in modulating levels of consciousness.
Areas associated with sleep, thalamus
What are locked-in syndrome, minimally conscious state & unresponsive wakefulness syndrome? What area of brain damage is associated with each.
locked-in syndrome: fully conscious but unable to move, damage to the ventral part of the pons
Minimally conscious state: e.g. fixation, response to a simple command - reduced activity in the cortex.
Unresponsive wakefulness syndrome: open eyes but only reflex behaviour - damage to cortex and/or thalamus.
What are bistable percepts, give examples.
Necker Cube, stimulus stays the same but your vision changes.
what is Binocular Rivalry
two eyes competiting together. you can compare this to when you actually change the stimulus.
In the second experiment instead of telling people to respond, you can record which way their eyes are moving.. this removes the limitation of performing the action.
What happens to consciousness and brain activity when anaesthetised?
Reduced network connectivity during propofol-induced loss of consciousness
A study that looked at the loss of consciousness when sleeping
The brain is less likely to make oscillations across the brain when we are asleep.
Evidence for a breakdown of long-range effective connectivity during non-REM sleep.
Thus, an impairment in the ability to integrate information may underlie the fading of consciousness in non-REM sleep early In the night.
What did the lucid dreaming study show about neural consciousness?
Increase in the bold signal. Activity in the frontal cortex, temporal cortex and occipital cortex. Show when conscious of dreaming appose to dreaming
