CH 10 Review Q's & Summary Flashcards
With masking, flash suppression, or binocular rivalry, a viewer is conscious of a stimulus under one condition but not another. How does the brain representation differ as a result?
When a viewer is conscious of a stimulus, the brain activity is stronger and more widespread.
When you are conscious of one eye’s stimulus during binocular rivalry, what happens to the representation of the stimulus in the other eye?
The brain processes that stimulus enough to determine whether or not it is important.
A brief masked stimulus is not perceived consciously, but a slightly longer one is perceived as lasting the entire duration. That finding supports which of these conclusions?
We sometimes construct a conscious perception after the stimulus, not simultaneously with it.
What did one woman in a vegetative state do that suggested she might be conscious?
She responded to instructions with increased activity in appropriate brain areas.
Psychologists long ago abandoned the study of consciousness
but today research is possible because of an operational definition, limited research questions, methods of measuring brain activity, and methods of presenting a stimulus while avoiding conscious perception.
Masking, flash suppression, and binocular rivalry are
among the methods to present a stimulus while preventing conscious perception of it.
When someone is conscious of a stimulus, the stimulus activates neurons more strongly
their activity reverberates through other brain areas, that activity rebounds to magnify the original response, and the process inhibits responses to competing stimuli.
The brain processes stimuli even without consciousness, enough to evaluate their importance.
Unconscious processes are an important part of cognition.
Consciousness of a stimulus appears to be an all-or-none process.
Either the brain activity spreads strongly through the brain, or it does not.
Conscious experience of a stimulus is a construction that can occur slightly after the stimulus itself,
rather than simultaneously with it.
Brain scans provide suggestions of consciousness in certain patients
who seem unresponsive to their environment.
When people report the time of a conscious decision to make a movement, brain scans indicate that
the brain activity responsible for the movement began before the reported time of the conscious decision.
Research promotes skepticism that people can report their decision times accurately.
Voluntary decisions are gradual, not sudden.
A possible function of conscious thought is to
prepare for future action when a similar situation arises.
In Libet’s experiment, in which people reported the time of a decision to flex the wrist, why were the results relevant to philosophical questions?
The results implied that conscious decisions do not control behavior.
