20 Consciousness (chapter 6) Flashcards
Consciousness & Dreaming - theories & purposes
Consciousness def
David Chalmers - discovery moment to moment awareness of selves and environment
Selective attention
Shifts in focus to stimuli/ exclusion to others
Means of measuring states of consciousness:
Self report measures: ask people of self insight into their consciousness - not verifiable (lying/ not fully aware), + simple, - language needed to communicate data
Behavioural measures: monitoring behaviour + verifiable, + useful on animals, young children, and others
Psychological measures: correspondence between body status and mental state eg recognition in a mirror/ corresponding brain imaging activity with sleep states
Combination of above methods to triangulate weakness of methods
levels of consciousness: Freudian viewpoint: psychoanalytic theory:
3 levels
Conscious mind: current aware thoughts
Preconscious mental events: events not currently aware of but easily recallable
Unconscious events: not easily brought to awareness/ subconscious biases - antisocial concepts
levels of consciousness: cognitive viewpoint
3 levels
Controlled processing:
conscious control - slow, more flexible
Automatice processing:
autopilot actions - fast, routine actions
Divided attention:
attend to + perform multiple activities at once
Blindsight
neural partial blindness, but can still respond to stimuli eg position of stimuli
Priming
subliminal stimuli presented, then influences later conscious perceptions
= our conscious thought can be influenced by subconscious stimuli
Consciousness use is to be selective of environment
purpose of a conscious mind
- learning for planning + decision making
- override dangerous impulses
- rationalise for new situations
Sleep waves types
Beta waves: wide awake alert - high freq, low amp.
Alpha waves: relaxed lower freq, higher amp
If alpha waves continue, sleep occurs
Sleep phases
stage 1: light sleep, irregular brain wave pattern, dream like images while feeling of awakeness
Stage 2: deeper sleep sleep spindles: periods of high brain wave activity
Stage 3: slow large rhythmic waves (slow waves)
Stage 4: deep sleep hard to wake - mostly delta waves (slow waves)
REM sleep (‘Paradoxical sleep’): dream state, High arousal as if awake - similar to beta wave activity, eyes move fast
- REM sleep paralysis: during rem, you are paralysed so don’t sleepwalk/ act out on dreams
- Paradoxical sleep: active/aroused, little movement
Progression through sleep phases
1, 2 , 3, 4, 3, 2, REM
REMs gets longer, 3,4 get shorter - more awake
when does dreaming happen
mostly during REM but also can during all other stages (25% in others)
Hypnagogic state
transition mindstate from awake to asleep - more delusional, lower consciousness. Still can see/ hear but slipping into stages 1,2
Purpose of dreaming: Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory
Purpose of dreams: Wish fulfilment: indulgent in our unconscious urges - often aggressive/ sexual/shunned = nightmares/bizarre
2 types of dream content:
1) Manifest Content: surface story that dream reports/ remember (ego)
2) Latent Content: hidden meanings of those events - fuelled by innate desires (id)
The translation of Latent content into Manifest content is called: Dream Work
What is Freud’s dream work concept?
The translation of Latent content into Manifest content by the ego to make acceptable sense of obscene subconscious thoughts.
Freud’s 2 types of dream content
1) Manifest Content: surface story that dream reports/ remember (ego)
2) Latent Content: hidden meanings of those events - fuelled by innate desires (id)
Purpose of dreaming: Activation synthesis theory
Purpose: dreams serve no purpose/ have no significance, are a byproduct of the brain sorting information during sleep
- Cerebral cortex (area that makes sense of environment) tries to make sense of random neural activation during REM sleep = creates storyline.
- therefore bizarre - random activation, narrative - CC makes storyline
Flaws: only explains REM sleep dreams, what about dreams that occur during other stages, dreams often hold some relationships to the days events/ what the person is often thinking about = not random activity
my personal theory on dreams
that you need some sort of prose to be kept asleep especially in lighter sleep stages
Purpose of dreaming: Cognitive models
Problem-solving dream models:
The subconscious free from constrains of reality can help find creative/ new solutions to our problems.
- But this does not explain all dreams - rare
Cognitive-process dream theories:
Dreams are just observable forms of our waking thinking processes e.g, jumps form one topic to another/ scene changes, that are more obvious as we do not have sensory deprivation/ time to think during the day.
Daydreams
are a significant part of waking consciousness, provide stimulation during boredom, particularly common among people with fantasy prone personalities.
- are visually focused but less vivid + emotional, bizarre than nightie dreams - may be bc nighttime dreams are unaware of it not being real
Fantasy prone personalities
have vivid visual based imaginations, often daydream, often confuse reality with dreams, majority are female, more prone to hypnosis, religious/ spiritual experiences (martyrs) can easier convince their bodies of a different reality to their current surroundings.
Hypnosis
- its own state of consciousness (controversial): focused attentions + reduces peripheral awareness, more susceptible to suggestions
Hypnosis Induction
process of 1 person leading another into hypnotic state
Hypnotic susceptibility scales
- measures how susceptible individuals are to hypnosis - differs among people
- tests whether they take in a suggestion while hypnotised - do/don’t follow direction
2 theories explaining hypnosis
Dissociation theories: it splits your consciousness - part of it experiences the hypnotic state while part of it is aware of the real environment, but it is your choice (susceptibility) that determines whether you ignore the conscious part. e.g., pain/temperature
Social cognitive theories: not a unique level of consciousness, just you under the influence of various psychological factors: relaxation, imagination, compliance, role-enactment, conformity, attention, attitudes + expectations - still going along with suggested environment.
Orne 1959
study supporting Social cognitive theories of hypnosis:
- 1 group told your dominant hand stiffens when hypnotised - 55% of this group experienced this, none of control group
= there is no universal ‘state of consciousness’ you are just under the influence of a certain belief system
What do brain scans show about hypnotisation?
Brain activity when hypnotised is different than voluntarily/ consciously doing the same behaviour
- does not prove a different state of consciousness, - could just be different thought process/ asked vs ‘forced’
