Attention and consciousness Flashcards
Selective vs. limited attention
Selective: directing our awareness to relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant stimuli
Limited: dividing attention between multiple stimuli
Inattentional vs. change blindness
Inattentional: failure to notice something that is completely visible because of a lack of attention
Change: observers’ inability to notice changes in their environment
Ex: “Person swap” study
Moore & Egeth study
Inattentional blindness
Used visual illusions (Muller Lyer illusion of arrow length) and found that people were susceptible to it even if they didn’t consciously process the stimuli that caused the illusion
TOT State
Failing to retrieve a word or term from memory as a response to a visual, auditory, or tactile presentation
Preconscious processing
The items that currently lie outside our conscious awareness, some may be made conscious, some may never get into conscious awareness
Blindsight
Person can’t consciously see a certain portion of their visual field but they still behave in some instances as if they can see it
Controlled vs. automatic processing
Automatic processing
- Requires no conscious control (little effort required), subcomponents can be performed in parallel
- Doesn’t consume much attentional resources
Performed quickly (familiar, well-practiced tasks)
Controlled processing
- Requires conscious control (takes effort)
- One step at a time (serial)
- Consumes our attentional resources
- Performed more slowly
- New tasks
Parallel vs. serial processing
Parallel: information processing approach in which the brain processes multiple stimuli simultaneously
Serial: information processing that must be carried out in a sequence
Stroop task
- We have problems selectively attending to a less automated task that competes with a more automated task
- Reading words vs. naming colors (the word “yellow”, but it’s in red)
Visual search (Treisman’s Theory)
- Actively searching for a target in a field of distractors
- Number of targets and distractors influence accuracy
- Feature search vs. conjunctive search
- Feature search: find presence of one feature in the array (e.g., find the red letter in a field of blue letters)
- Conjunctive search: find the conjunction of 2 or more features together. (e.g., find a red Z in a field of red and blue Zs and Ms)
- Feature search vs. conjunctive search
Conscousness
- Subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment
- All the sensations, perceptions, memories, and feelings you are aware of in any instant
- Not an all-or-nothing phenomenon- it exists on a continuum
Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
- Part of hypothalamus and is involved in maintaining circadian rhythms
- Receives direct input from the eyes (monitoring light levels)
Theories of purpose of sleep
- Adaptive functions: sleep may have played a protective role in human evolution by keeping people safe during the night (potentially dangerous periods) and saving energy
- Sleep helps to restore and repair damaged neurons
- Restores immune system
- REM and NREM-2 help strengthen neural connections that build enduring memories
Theories of purpose of dreams
- Most dreams are special messages about what is missing in our lives, what we avoid doing, or feelings that we need to re-own
- Lucid dreaming: person feels fully awake within the dream and feels capable of normal thought and action
Freudian theories of dreams
Four dream processes:
- Condensation: combining diff people, objects, or events into a single dream image
- Displacement: directing emotions toward safe or unimportant dream images
- Symbolization: nonliteral expressions of dream content
- Secondary elaboration: making a dream more logical and complete while remembering it
Manifest vs. latent content
Manifest: remembered story line of dream
Latent: underlying meaning of dream
Stages of sleep
- Stage 1: NREM 1: Small irregular waves in light sleep
- Stage 2: NREM 2: Deeper sleep, sleep spindles (bursts of distinctive brain wave activity) appear
- Stage 3: NREM 3: Even deeper sleep, sleep delta waves appear very large and slow; deepest level of normal sleep, almost pure delta waves
- Stage 4: REM: Dreaming, light sleep, body very still, genitals may be aroused
*Sleep cycle repeats throughout night
REM rebound
Person temporarily receives more REM sleep than they normally would- more dreams
Alpha vs. delta waves
When asleep
Alpha waves: larger, slower waves; relaxation just before falling asleep
Delta waves: very large and slow waves associated with move to deeper sleep and further loss of consciousness
When awake
Alpha waves: calm, relaxed
Beta: more focused and active
